About Alison & Martin London

A quarter of a century. I still can’t quite believe it when I write it down.

Martin and I started this in London 25 years ago, with a bit of savings we couldn’t really spare and the kind of stubborn hope you only have when you’re young enough not to know better.

The first years were difficult. There were a few in the middle that weren’t much easier. There were mornings I sat with a cup of tea and wondered what on earth we’d done. But we kept going, because we believed in something simple: that a woman should be able to find a dress she’d still want to wear in five years.

That belief is still the whole shop. We pick every piece ourselves — Martin, our daughter Eliza, and me. We turn down more than we take. If we wouldn’t wear it ourselves, we don’t sell it. We never have, and we never will.

Eliza grew up around all of this. She used to sit at the kitchen table looking at fabric swatches when she was no taller than the chair. Now she’s part of the work, and watching her in it is one of the quiet pleasures of these 25 years.

We’ve stayed family-run on purpose. We’ve never wanted to be the biggest. We’ve wanted to be the one a woman comes back to in five years, in ten, when something else has fallen apart and the dress she bought from us is still her favourite.

To everyone who’s been with us through the years — thank you. None of this is here without you.

— Alison