What’s New At CHILLIE LONDON — And It Is Very Good News.

Chillie just got even bigger. And we could not be more excited about it. Whether you are looking for sewing classes in London, creative workshops in Notting Hill, things to do with kids this half term in London, or an incredible family day out in Margate — you are in exactly the right place.

Adults. We Have Been Waiting For You.

Our next evening at CHILLIE

What’s New At Chillie? This is something we have wanted to do for a very long time. For two years we have been running Chillie Kids Club, watching kids discover what they are capable of. Watching them pick up a needle, sit down at a sewing machine, get their hands on a piece of old fabric — and just completely come alive. The pride on their faces when they finish something they made themselves? There is nothing like it. And we kept thinking — adults need this too.

So we created our adults only creative workshops right here at our Notting Hill shop — and honestly? After Chillie Kids Club, we think it might just be the best idea we have ever had. We have three workshops on offer — pick the one that’s calling your name.

Sewing Classes London - First Tuesday of the month Tuesday 2 June (next available)

Ever wanted to learn how to use a sewing machine properly? This is your moment. Our professional seamstress will teach you how to sew onto fabric using different techniques — and by the end of the session you will have made something with your own hands. Bring your own machine or borrow one of ours. Zero experience needed. All levels completely welcome.

Crochet Classes London

Learn the basics from scratch and start making something in the session. Relaxing, creative and seriously addictive. Warning: you will want to come back.

Upcycling Workshops London

Bring something old or use one of ours. Cut it, stitch it, customise it, repair it. Leave with something you’ll actually want to wear.

Group bookings only — minimum 6 people. Available during the day or in the evening. Birthday? Hen do? Team day out? We will make it completely unforgettable.

359 Portobello Road, Notting Hill, London

Two hour session — £25 per person

Three hour session — £35 per person

Book now →  https://www.chilliekidsclub.com/booking-calendar/adults-only-sewing-machine-workshop?referral=service_list_widget

Email us → info@chillielondon.com

Things to do With Teens in London this Half Term, Upcycle Club — Teen Workshops In London Just Got A Whole Lot Better.

Teaching the next generation is everything to us. It always has been. And now we have created something specifically for teenagers — their own creative space. No adults. No little kids. Just 11 to 16 year olds, old clothes, scissors and sewing machines — and three hours of pure creative freedom. Upcycle an old jacket. Customise a pair of jeans. Make something nobody else has. Our team will guide them every step of the way — but this is their space and their designs entirely. We genuinely believe there are some serious future designers in this crowd. We cannot wait to meet them.

Wednesday 27 May — Clapton, Palm 2 Deli, 156 Lower Clapton Road, E5 3.30-6.30pm

Thursday 28 May — Portobello Road, 359 Portobello Road, London W10 3.30-6.30pm

11 to 16 year olds — 3 hours — £25

Book now → https://www.chilliekidsclub.com/booking-calendar/copy-of-adults-only?referral=service_list_widget

Things To Do In Margate With Kids — We Are Coming To Turner Contemporary.

Chillie Kids is heading to Turner Contemporary, Margate on Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 May as part of Kinder Collective’s Turn The Tide — one of the most exciting family events in Margate this year. A curated kids pop up market celebrating creativity, sustainability and everything we love most. Kids upcycling workshops by the sea. Beautiful independent brands. Two full days of creativity and good vibes. If you have children, live locally, or are just looking for an incredible family day out in Margate — come and find us. We would absolutely love to see you there.

Saturday 30 + Sunday 31 May 2026

11am to 1pm and 2pm to 4pm

£20 per child

Book now → https://www.chilliekidsclub.com/service-page/chillie-kids-x-turner-margate

Half Term Activities London — Chillie Kids Club Is Coming To A Location Near You.

Looking for half term activities in London for kids? We have got you completely covered. Chillie Kids Club is popping up across London this May half term with upcycling workshops for kids aged 5 and over. A full day of creativity, sustainable fashion and making something extraordinary out of something that was about to be thrown away. Teaching kids not to throw their clothes away — one workshop at a time.

9am - 3pm. £50. Ages 5 upwards.

Book your kids a seat at the table → https://www.chilliekidsclub.com/kids-clubs-2

Find Us. Book Us. Come And See Us.

Is it acceptable to wear second hand fur?

This AW24 fashion week the shows were full of faux fur maybe even real, can you even tell the difference between them now? The mob wife aesthetic has become a huge influence creating a storm over whether wearing second hand fur is acceptable. But it definitely seems to be a trend that isn't going away.

How do you feel about it?

We have taken extracts from the following articles but what are your thoughts on this latest trend?

Aw24 Miu Miu

VOGUE

'At first, it just felt like a TikTok trend: Gen Z and millennials wearing vintage fur or faux-fur coats to incarnate the so-called mob-wife aesthetic—an ostentatious mafioso style that takes cues from Carmela Soprano and The Godfather’s Connie Corleone. Then it felt like a celebrity stunt moment: Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber wearing shearling coats in Aspen, Ice Spice wearing repurposed fur to the 2024 Grammys, and Kim Kardashian stepping out in a matching fuzzy Prada set—all within a few months of each other. But suddenly it felt like a real thing.

The bellwether perhaps began with Pharrell Williams’s Louis Vuitton men’s collections and their floor length dusters. It continued during New York Fashion Week, where models wearing fur—some of it real, some vintage, some faux—strutted down several runways. Luar had fur stoles, and LaQuan Smithopted for opulent bomber jackets. Models in bold, burgundy shearling jackets strutted at Khaite, while over in London Simone Rochawrapped her models’ shoulders in faux-fur patches. Fast-forward to Milan, and Ballyshowed dresses and vests lined with elegant fur trimmings. Before Paris even began—where Miu Miu put a faux fur coat on Gigi Hadid and Balenciaga opted for faux-fur dusters—it was clear. The fur aesthetic had officially gone far beyond algorithms.

But the return of real fur has taken many in the industry by surprise. In 2021, it appeared to be firmly out. Kering—the French luxury conglomerate that owns Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, and Balenciaga, among many other labels—banned its use across its maisons. Billie Eilish asked Oscar de la Renta to go fur-free, and it agreed. Saks Fifth Avenue closed their fur salons and announced they’d stop selling fur goods by 2023. Meanwhile, California banned the sale of mink, sable, chinchilla, lynx, fox, rabbit, beaver, and coyote furs outright. The British Fashion Council even banned it from London Fashion Week.

When fur is used in a slow-fashion way, it is a relatively sustainable resource. It’s in the farmer’s best interest to maximize every part of the animal: The cows we eat are also used for leather. Shearling comes from lambs set to be consumed, making it a byproduct of our food supply. (This is why shearling is often still sold by retailers that have banned most other types of fur—and is not included in the statewide or company-wide bans.) For those animals we don’t eat, the meat often goes into animal feed, fertilizers, or other various products. Mink fat, for example, can be used in soap manufacturing.

But we don’t live in a world of slow fashion anymore. We live in a fast, mass-consumer one. And in that world, more than one billion animals are killed every year for the fur industry, according to the Journal of Animal Ethics. Ethically, it’s hard for some to justify that number. And sure, some luxury brands have enough money to use high-end fur companies that offer transparency and traceability, but that’s more often the exception than the rule. There’s no way that all those animals are killed responsibly or handled sustainability (if you even think either is possible).

The solution, at first, seemed like faux fur: something that made the wearer feel luxurious yet was cruelty-free. Yet faux fur is most often made from microplastics, which are not biodegradable. According to the United Nations, synthetic clothing releases an estimated 1.4 million trillion plastic fibers per year into the ocean. This seemingly leaves consumers with no great choice: Eco-friendliness comes at the price of ethics, or ethics comes at the price of eco-friendliness. “Fur can be sustainable, but faux fur is not,” Mai says. “But faux fur isn’t an animal product, and fur is. Those are two separate conversations.”

Enter vintage fur.

It circumvents both the problems of real fur and faux fur; you are neither harming any animals nor creating any waste for landfills.

“With upcycling and vintage, you’re not causing any additional harm,” the designers told Vogue in 2021. Meanwhile, interest in thrifting has reached an all-time high. Some 62% of Gen Z and millennial consumers say they look for items secondhand before buying new. (“Clean girl is out, mob-wife era is in…. We’re wearing vintage furs all winter,” TikToker Kayla Trivieri said in her now viral voiceover describing the mob-wife aesthetic.)

...wearing fur, justifying it by saying, ‘It’s in my closet anyways, it’s vintage, and I might as well wear it.’”

Loewe AW24

VOGUE BUSINESS...

TikTok #mobwifeaesthetics has already garnered over 52 millions views in the past 10 days.

Faux fur coats are already up 18 per cent this month, while searches for leopard print are up a staggering 213 per cent.

“Fur is one of the most polluting and wasteful industries in the fashion world,” says Claire Bass, senior campaigns and public affairs director at Humane Society. However, she is hopeful that “the increasing availability of innovative, next-gen materials”, such as plant-based alternatives, is a step towards a sustainable fur-free future.

Many of the current faux fur alternatives are made from petroleum-based products and polyester and acrylic mixes, which can take approximately 1,000 years to biodegrade once they inevitably end up in landfill. “Moving away from petroleum-based products while keeping intact our animal-free vision definitely is a huge challenge,” says Arnaud Brunois, the communication and sustainability manager of Ecopel, a faux fur artisan that works with brands like Stella McCartney. “The new generation of synthetics will have to be designed differently, free of virgin plastics to keep circularity in mind.”

“Ultimately the most sustainable thing you can do is buy timeless pieces that you can wear over multiple seasons,” says Maisonrouge. “Not just because it’s mob wife winter.”

What do you think? Are you for or against? Is wearing second hand fur or faux fur still glamorising it and shouldn't be worn at all?

🌶️

Chillie London x M.C.Overalls

M.C.Overalls & Chillie London have combined to produce a limited edition capsule collection and fitting tribute to up-cycled fashion. Celebrating authenticity and quality craftsmanship, this collab builds on the relationship between changing habits and the awareness of a new generation of consumer in a post pandemic environment. 

Fast fashion has made space for a brighter vision of nostalgia and sustainable creativity. This  capsule collection is comprised of 20 pieces. ChillieLondon have revisited some of M.C.Overalls signature styles and colourways from the iconic to the brand’s tried & tested staples. Pieces include, Overalls, Work jackets, Coach jackets combined with Chillie’s vision of second hand bomber jackets and vintage workwear pieces. 

With a focus on reducing the environmental impact and promoting a greener future, Chillie London have been sourcing 90’s style bombers jackets, workwear,  waistcoats and other hardware and textiles.  Using rejected padding, textures and layers from all parts of a jacket, they have recreated a new style of jacket to define what up-cycling is all about.  The jackets are functional but also several styles have multiple options and ways of styling.  Layered with waistcoats to style over or under a jacket some of these pieces have 3 to 4 ways to wear them.  The idea is to have a piece that can be styled in many ways to add to the sustainability of the piece.  

‘Our vision for the future is to keep producing up-cycled collections that hopefully inspire other brands to do the same rather than over producing with with huge amounts of wasted clothing.’ Says Natalie Hartley, co- founder of Chillie London

She added ‘We want to work with brands that are aligned with our vision about sustainability.  M.C.Overalls have iconic pieces produced and designed to a high level with great quality which remains the benchmark for a sustainable brand.  We love their simplicity, modern easy dressing which mirrors our approach to fashion.  Each piece has been the perfect blank canvas for us to create from staying true to their vision with a little spice from Chillie.  

‘Upcycling can be the new recycling for fashion.  It has to be this way we are here to make sure this does keep happening’ says Lydia co- founder of Chillie London 

Prices start at £175 and go up to £350. 

Available from the 11th October 2023 at the new Chillie London store on 361 Portobello Rd, London W10 5SA.

The full collection is now available online https://www.chillielondon.com