More Leytonstone Shop Windows: More pictures from my walk in September 1994.
High Road Leytonstone is a main road which stretches from around the junction with Cann Hall Lane and goes though the centre of Leytonstone to the Green Man Roundabout around a mile and a half to the north. When I made these pictures I had little interest in their exact location. It was the content of the picture that interested me, this plastic-wrapped head and arm-less torso in a tight top and skirt with rather odd chains with hanging tassels and the curtains with flowering branches and vases of flowers.
I stood further back to take a more overall image, but this meant I was unable to control the reflection. This shows a rather distinctive end of a terrace of shops which I can’t now find on High Rd, Leytonstone, but there are some very similar frontages close to the south end of the road. But perhaps someone with local knowledge will be able to comment and post a more detailed location for this and the other images.
A sparsely furnished brightly coloured café with shining clean tables, but strangely lacking in condiments, with just a single pepper pot on each table. And apparently nothing on the wall behind. Those double-side bright red benches look to me rather narrow and uncomfortable and a possible cause of friction with those sitting on the bench on the other side.
The lettering and decoration of ‘All Occasions Florists’ suggested to me a Greek or Turkish hand behind them, but the posters covering the windows indicated this was no longer in business selling Wedding and Funeral Flowers.
I could never understand the large number of wig shops in all of the most deprived areas of London, and photographed many of the displays. And why at the front of the window was there a bright blue bald head?
Most of the wigs seemed to be for women, but I was attracted to this window for men, with a head with a ridiculously fake moustache and behind, with staring blue eyes and ridiculous eyebrows, a figure with a crudely drawn collar and tie. And another bald head, this time white while the other male heads were – unlike those in the previous picture – some kind of skin colour.
And a second, wider view of that same window, with at the bottom a photograph of a man wearing the ‘St Giles’ wig and giving some technical details: 60% human hair and 40% modacyrlic fibre it weighs 42 grams and is available in a wide range of colours.
People wear wigs for various reason, including to cover hair loss due to alopecia or chemotherapy as well as for fashion and changing their looks – as well as for theatre, TV and film. Apparently many people including some stars are never seen in public without one.
More colour from Leytonstone later.
Flickr – Facebook – My London Diary – Hull Photos – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Photos
All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.