Maison de Bang Bang sits down the road from a giant Screwfix, and next door to Edible London, a food poverty non-profit, in Tottenham. Downstairs, piles of T-shirts are being sorted to post out to customers. Upstairs in the light filled studio hang giant billowing textiles and (faux) Chanel-branded catwalk pieces, a mannequin adorned with a part-dress, part-weighty armour made from silver whistles, “the whistleblower”; shelves groan with books, from JG Ballard to Martin Margiela; rails packed with colourful, ebullient fashion show looks.
In the corner, with a strip of cardboard covered in notes as his to-do list, is its proprietor, Jon Wright, 38, AKA Jonny Sportsbanger. Sportsbanger isn’t really one thing or another. It’s a fashion label, provocative art project, host of raves, and music label (Heras, named after the security fence firm often found at festivals, a play on opening the gates for all). For 10 years, Wright has toyed with, bootlegged and mimicked popular culture as much as he has ended up defining it, flirting with respectability, carving out a social purpose and expertly antagonising the powers that be.
