Vice Fashion - Bookshop Boys

PHOTOGRAPHER: DAVID TITLOW

STYLIST: MISCHA NOTCUTT

Tristram wears jacket and cardigan by J.Lindeberg, shirt by Paul Smith and jeans by American Apparel

TRISTRAM BAWTREE

Age: 23

Shop: Shipleys,

Charing Cross Road

Vice: What is working in a bookshop like?

Tristram:

It’s quiet, like a little refuge from the world. It’s kind of the polar opposite to bar work, which is what I was doing before.

Why work in this pokey hovel? Why not work at a Borders and get free Starbucks?

I just don’t like chains. I disagree with pretty much everything about them.

What is your favourite book of all time?

Narcissus and Goldmund

by Herman Hesse. It’s basically about the conflict between hedonism and aestheticism and the body and the mind.

That sounds pretty intense. Ever seen anything like that round here?

Most of the people who come in are fine. There was one guy the other day though who was a potential suicide case, he had to be taken away by the police. Oh, and the art shop flooded last week, water was just pouring through the ceiling.

Connor wears jumper by Lacoste, shirt by Jil Sander and trousers by Ralph Lauren

CONNOR DONLON

Age: 28

Shop: Donlon Books,

Herald Street,

Bethnal Green

Vice: You must really like books to work here all day.

Connor:

It is a bit of a labour of love. We are only open Thursday through Sunday, though. I do other stuff as well like working in a shop on Charing Cross Road and assisting Wolfgang Tillmans, the photographer, sometimes.

You seem to sell pretty specialist stuff. Have the larger bookshops ever affected you?

We don’t really swim in the same ponds.

What would be your go-to book in a time of need?

It’s impossible to say. I have a lot of oddities in at the moment like this book that is all boxing photos. I have a lot of stuff on rural pagan rituals as well. That stuff is pretty good.

There’s also a gallery here. Anyone ever spilt some Beck’s on the books at an opening?

Funnily enough we had an opening last night. It went on late but everyone was pretty well-behaved.

Thomas wears jumper by Filippa K and shirt by Uniqlo

THOMAS BROCK

Age: 22

Shop: Lovejoys,

Charing Cross Road

Vice: What is it about working in a bookshop that gets you going?

Thomas:

Books smell good, except when they don’t. But they usually do.

There’s a big Books Etc across the road, why not work there? They look like they’d have a dental plan.

You get reliability with the chains whereas you get individuality and diversity with the independents. Although it comes with a certain amount of unreliability. Walk into a chain and you can be sure of finding everything on the best-seller list, but walk into an independent and you might find something you’ve never seen before.

Which single tome really stokes your coals?

Papillon

by Henri Charrière. It’s an autobiographical novel following the author’s wrongful conviction and imprisonment in a penal colony in French Guiana in the 30s and his various escape attempts and adventures in South America.

Paul wears T-shirt by Ambiguous, cardigan by Fred Perry, tank top cardigan by French Connection and jeans by Levi’s

PAUL SAMMUT

Age: 26

Shop: ICA Bookshop,

St James’s Park

Vice: What first got you into the whole working in a bookshop thing?

Paul:

My boss is a little cracker. I think that’s what swung it.

Why here and not Waterstone’s?

Most people are losing sales to the internet these days. Independent bookshops are specialist shops so they offer a different kind of service. We also have more control over what we stock so I can order the kind of books I’d actually like to read.

Which book would you tuck up with on a cold night where it was so bleak that the TV was no longer even working?

I don’t think I have a single favourite but I’m reading this really great book at the minute, it’s a new translation of Albert Meister’s

The So-Called Utopia of the Centre Beaubourg

. It’s about an open creative collective that exists on the 76 floors built beneath the Pompidou Centre.

Stuart wears T-shirt by Onitsuka Tiger, shirt and jacket by Diesel, jumper by Lacoste, jeans by Uniqlo and shoes by J.Lindeberg'

STUART HAMMOND

Age: 25

Shop: The Riverside Bookshop, London Bridge

Vice: Why work in a bookshop?

Stuart:

I like to read a lot and it’s quiet. I just see it as a stop gap while I wait for my career in professional skateboarding to take off.

How do you feel about independent shops being gobbled up by the chains?

Shop in the independents, shoplift in the chains.

What book really gets you going?

It changes every day. Maybe

The Adventures of Augie March

by Saul Bellow. Maybe

White Noise

by Don DeLillo. Or

Treasure Island

. Or

Lolita.

Or

The Picture of Dorian Gray

.

What happens in here? It is pretty quiet. Doesn’t exactly seem a barrel of laughs.

A pigeon flew in here once and we couldn’t get it back out. In the end I had to get an old lady to get rid of it because, frankly, the bird unsettled me. That was sort of humiliating. Another time we had a squirrel come in and mooch about in History for a bit. A mouse once, too. It’s basically like Wind in the Willows in this place.

Max wears jacket by J.Lindeberg, shirt by Vivienne Westwood, jumper by Lacoste and trousers by Fred Perry

MAX HARRISON

Age: 22

Shop: Soho Books,

Charing Cross Road

Vice: What first attracted you to spending all day working in a room surrounded by dead people’s words written down on paper?

Max:

Getting laid. Big time. It happens.

What has been your experience of the increasing dominance of the larger chains in the market?

I try not to notice, but independent bookshops overcharge.

Which single book would you take over all others?

Whichever one I have last enjoyed.

Have you ever given a customer an incorrect piece of advice?

A student once got very angry with me for mistaking Ovid for Tacitus.