An iconic Soho fabric store used in films where Kate Winslet and Jude Law and its owner rubbed shoulders with some of Hollywood’s biggest names.

It’s likely that this SoHo store has become a part of your life without you even knowing it. If you’ve ever watched blockbusters like Star Wars or binge-worthy TV shows like The Bridgertons, then you’ve seen suits made from fabric from Soho fabric and haberdashery store MacCulloch & Wallis.

Managed by Victoria Connelly for the past 32 years, Poland Street has been in business since 1902 and enjoys a stellar reputation among both film and theater directors. “They all come here at some point,” Victoria said, talking about which films or TV shows her fabrics have been featured in.

She added: “In theatre, everyone has accounts with us and they’re always with us, we’ve been doing business for over 100 years – the Opera House, the Royal Ballet, all the theatres.”

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The store has firmly established itself in show business and has done it in style, literally. In several Star Wars films, Victoria has said that the black fabric underneath the iconic white stormtrooper armor was purchased from her store.

She said of the sale: “We like to name our fabrics because it’s fun – people come in and ask for something you’ve named for. But unfortunately, it’s always the stupid names you come up with that become popular and you just feel a little stupid.

“It’s called Lizardprene,” Victoria said with a grin, “It’s like neoprene, but it has a lizard texture embossed on it. They didn’t buy it because of the lizard texture, they bought it because it was stretchy and black. Lizardpren… I’m ashamed to say it.”

Another fun name that was used a lot was Superpantz (yes, with a z), which is a very stretchy fabric similar to Spanx.

According to Victoria, McCulloch and Wallis fabrics are widely used in the costumes of the hit Netflix series “Bridgertons.” This was partly because much of this film was shot during Covid, Victoria said, so production companies had to source fabrics locally.

According to Vistoria, each product is code-named during the fabric purchasing process to keep the film secret, and purchasing is done by freelancers. According to her, the code name for Star Wars was “Space Bear” when they came to McCulloch and Wallis.

Famous Sowers

Although it is not only show business production companies that stop by the store when they come to town to buy fabrics and haberdashery, actors also stop by the store themselves. Victoria mentioned that many top stars have visited her over the years.

She said John Malkovich bought buttons, Kate Winslet bought supplies for corset-making courses, Jude Law visited her, and Helena Bonham Carter. Antonio Banderas also visited the store during a short cape-making course at Central St Martins.

About 20 years ago, Joanna Lumley walked into the shop when it was still in Mayfair, looking for silk for a wedding veil. Boy George also visited, as did John Inman.

Victoria talked about how she interacted with the visiting celebrities. She said dryly, “Apparently we’re doing the English thing, pretending we don’t know who they are. This is the right thing to do.”

But this applies not only to actors, but also to leading fashionistas: the queen’s dressmaker even came to the store to buy fabric, Victoria said. The West End is England’s main fashion hub and the store also attracts a lot of business from fashion houses in the area, as well as from students visiting for the weekend from Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion.

Changes in the textile trade in London

Soho, especially Berwick Street, which runs parallel to Poland Street, used to be the center of London’s drapery shops, but more and more are moving out these days. Victoria said there were six fabric shops on Berwick Street before Covid, but now there are only two left as the other four have moved to premises outside the West End.

While this does help reduce competition for businesses in the area, it also has the downside of making textile trading less of a priority. Running a store in Soho is incredibly expensive given the hefty business rates and rents, but Victoria sees the business continuing as it has in central London for the past 121 years.

The store also has an online delivery store to cater to customers outside the capital, which she says has been extremely helpful during Covid. While the internet has proven to be a useful tool, Victoria said it has made it much easier for people to find out where she gets her fabrics from, and in some ways it has changed the way the store operates, but it hasn’t really reduced the workload.

Because the products she sells have a reputation for high quality, global economic issues don’t really impact the store that much. She said: “It’s actually quite an interesting thing: as soon as things get difficult, like the credit crunch, Covid, the cost of living crisis, people seem to spend more on that sort of thing.”

The future of McCulloch and Wallis looks pretty secure for Victoria, who wants to forge her own path, building on the more than a century of success she has behind her and propelling the store forward with her beautiful fabric sails.

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