Henry Holland, Roksanda Ilincic do dry cleaning here – London’s The Steam Room could be city’s coolest place to clean clothes
- Chinese-run The Steam Room in London doesn’t just clean clothes, it sells tote bags and T-shirts and runs an underground events space for artists
- Its clientele includes celebrity designers and it recently hosted an exhibition by the artist Xi Jianjun
When was the last time you were excited to go to the dry cleaners?
That right there – the resounding silence of trying to associate dry cleaning with excitement – is why The Steam Room in East London is such a rarity.
Run by Tony Chung and his wife Fran Lieu, The Steam Room is a dry cleaners combined with a lifestyle shop and an underground events space.
But The Steam Room wasn’t always the category-redefining dry cleaners that it is now.
Forty-four years ago, Chung’s parents brought him over from Hong Kong as a six-month-old. For most of his life, his mum and dad worked all week in their Chinese takeaway, taking only a few days off for Christmas. When they retired 17 years ago and handed the shop over to Chung, their one piece of advice to him was to steer clear of the gruelling food industry.
At the time, Chung was working for a research publication and was eager to try something new. “I was working in the City [London’s financial centre] and I wasn't really too happy with the service I got from the dry cleaners,” he explains. “And then being at this location [in East London’s Haggerston area], it was still up-and-coming, so it felt like it worked to have a dry cleaners.”
Although Chung’s original plan was to target City workers, his shop was far from the area, and what he ended up with was a younger crowd – who don’t tend to have much to dry-clean.
“It wasn’t great for a good eight years of the business,” recalls Chung.
Then, two years ago, a spontaneous drawing turned things around.
“My wife did a small little doodle of me on the opening sign. It was just a little squiggle. Round face, bushy eyebrows, small eyes, that was it. We put it outside and everyone who walked past would stop, look through the window [at me], and then have a little giggle.”
Today, that cartoon has become The Steam Room’s much-loved logo, and is printed on their totes and tees, which they sell.
At first, Chung’s old-school dad was sceptical about the merchandising and lifestyle angle for the shop, and thought they should stick to dry cleaning. An initial run of 100 T-shirts proved him wrong, however, selling out within a month.
“Stuff” now includes the recently opened Steamroom Basement. Although it is still in its early stages, the idea is that it will provide studio space for emerging Asian designers, as well as hosting pop-up exhibitions and fashion talks. Chung’s aim is for it to be a multipurpose event/retail space alongside a working commercial kitchen.
If you care about the environment, wash clothes less often
Then there’s the lifestyle shop curated by Lieu, who sources and tests every single product (some of which are available through their online store). Here, you’ll find everything from local ceramics to Hong Kong-made Camel flasks and specialist clothes brushes.
“We wanted to go back to basics, and treat it as a craft and as a skill more than just putting things [in machines] and pressing a button.”
The knowledge that Chung has built up over the years also means that sometimes he will advise a client not to clean a garment if it doesn’t need it yet.
“I clean based on our Chinese roots, [so it’s] about loyalty and respect. We want our clients to be happy to come back,” says Chung. “Being a local lad, [my clients are] the neighbours I’ve grown up with so it’s always about trying to be honest and truthful to them.”
And if that means telling a prospective customer that their precious chore jacket will lose its colour after cleaning, so be it.
And speaking of longevity, guess who has come out of his retirement to work in the shop? Why, Papa Chung, of course.
