On a busy stretch of Kingsland Road, between picture-framing shops, nail salons and a Turkish restaurant, sits a small drycleaners that’s been owned by Tony Chung and run with his wife, Fran Mei Liew, since 2004.
For the first dozen years, business was slow. “The neighbourhood was only just starting to become up-and-coming,” Chung says. Over time, though, customers gradually came to appreciate his care with clothes and word began to spread in London’s fashion circles.
Preloved boutique House of Liza, with its archive of Comme des Garçons, became a long-term client. Soon pieces by Roksanda, Casablanca, Victoria Beckham, Christopher Kane, Simone Rocha, Eudon Choi, John Alexander Skelton and Self-Portrait were rolling through the door. “Everyone came in, and they’d ask for me,” Chung says.
Around the same time, Mei Liew drew a cartoon of Chung with a round face and thick eyebrows. “We had a big laugh,” he says. They turned it into the storefront sign and printed it on 100 T-shirts, which quickly sold out. “After that, everything sort of changed. We decided we wanted a shop about my East End upbringing and heritage.”
The Steam Room still has its pressing boards and rails of garments out back. But unlike most drycleaners, you’ll also find graphic tees, artisan prints, brushes, enamel pins and homewares stocked, concept-store style, in the front. During the pandemic, when drycleaners were classed as essential and allowed to stay open, the Steam Room went further still and used its front windows to exhibit local artists, becoming a beacon for London’s East and Southeast Asian creatives at a time of rising anti-Asian sentiment.
And soon, if all goes to plan, you’ll be able to pick up a specialised denim wash designed by Chung himself. “The denim wash is in production now. I’m really excited for that,” he says. “For years I was never really happy with the denim washes I’d been using. I felt there was a need for a better one.”
The new product is the first in a line called Tony Cleans. After more than a year of development, it will debut this month – sold in-store and at a handful of local retailers. “We’re starting off with the denim wash, which will also help improve my denim handwashing service,” Chung says. For that, he still relies on a Victorian trough that has become one of the shop’s signatures. “It’s taken me two decades to actually physically grasp how I clean. It was always about just concentrating on every item that comes in and how I look after it.”
The launch marks a new chapter for the almost 22-year-old business. In 1976, the year Chung was born, his Hong Kong-born parents opened a Chinese takeaway on the same site. Chung often slept under the counter while they worked. Later, he graduated with a degree in product design and worked in Hong Kong for two years before returning to London to take over the space when his parents retired, turning it into a drycleaners. His father still helps out at the shop today.
This year brought another milestone: a pop-up at Boxpark Shoreditch, which runs until December. The Boxpark outpost doesn’t offer cleaning, but it does showcase Chung and Mei Liew’s products.
While the merch adds colour and fun to the business, Chung insists the Steam Room has always been about the clothes. “It’s all about cleaning appreciation,” he says. “How I clean is how I treat everything.”
Interview by Daniel Giacopelli, founder of For Starters
