The Brick Lane phenomenon

Last Saturday (it being my housemate's 22nd birthday) three of us went 'retro-clothes' shopping in Brick Lane; previously a gritty working class area of the city, which has seen successive waves of immigrants move in, now the area around Brick Lane and Bethnal Green is now officially a trendy place to live (an estate agent having woken up one day, realised the proximity of BL to the City and gone, in the words of Homer Simpson, "DOH"). As such the streets are lined with life's essentials- who, after all, could live without organic, shade grown coffee ?

Brick Lane is also home to a curiously 'inverted' market for clothes where, the shitter (sorry, er more retro) a piece of clothing appears the higher the price it sells for...thus a semi ripped pair of jeans will set you back £20, a fully ripped pair £35 and so on. Whilst sifting through this assortment of stuff is fun for a while (to be fair, I've bought several t-shirts from Brick Lane over the past three years) you're left with the impression that someone, somewhere, is taking the piss (other than me that is)...

I read somewhere once about a qualified lawyer who made his money by going over to Hong Kong, buying "genuine silk ties" (the label may be silk - the tie however, is polyester) for bugger all and selling them out of a suitcase in pubs around the City). So I'm not going to be too harsh on people selling their charity-shop stock in Brick Lane; in a few years I might be joining them !