I don't care about the red carpet

Rejina Pyo dresses real women... and it's working

- JOE BROMLEY

To find the South Korean designer Rejina Pyo, 41, grinning on the fourth floor of the Soho Revue gallery is a remarkable thing. She is dressed in her own beige, pleated skirt, pinstriped white shirt, burnt orange sweater vest and cobalt blue adidas Sambas, busily curating an exhibition which will mark her brand's decade anniversary. I challenge you to find anyone working in the British fashion industry who will not tell you that is a momentous feat.

Why? Because keeping a fashion brand afloat in London today is- to put it bluntly- an expensive, bloody and often damn-near impossible task. Retail infrastructure is crumbling, aspirational shoppers creep ever closer to going the way of the dodo, and casualties are stacking up.

Leading luxury retailer Matches Fashion, onetime high-street overlord Ted Baker, and outfitter of the richest and most famous, The Vampire's Wife - all have fallen into administration in the past year. Remaining brands are crowding A&E.

Despite this, Pyo is still standing. We are only a stone's throw from her own shop on Upper St James Street, which opened in 2022 and is currently packed full of her signature style of wearable garments which have attracted a fiercely loyal customer base. "It's been 10 years but it feels more like 20," she says. "I appreciate how incredible it is to be a completely independent business at this status. To be loved and standing here - that in itself is amazing." Indeed, many would never have guessed it.