Goodbye Junior

I heard yesterday that Junior Persaud had passed away. Although we hadn’t spoken for a couple of years, I want to credit him for being a huge contributor to the development of the identity of Ally Capellino. 


Junior Persaud
Model with Ally Capellino green frame bag


The J & R Factory in Homerton was possibly one of the last representatives of the handbag making industry that had employed so many people in the east end of London. Alfred Persaud, Junior’s dad originally came from Guyana to the UK in 1958 and his wife followed a few years later. He seems to have been an amazing engineer as he built the machinery that would bend the raw metal into the frames which became quite a signature for us. 


When I first met Junior, he had taken on the role of director of the factory. The place was utterly chaotic with metal and equipment piled up all over the place. The people who worked there were quite a family and always very sweet and kind, immigrants from India and Pakistan mostly.

J&R Factory


I challenged Junior often with new ideas and he would never say no. He always tried to do what I was asking for. That included making a set of chairs for Design Week in 2013. We took some old metal PEL chairs and Junior stripped them down to the steel frames and made custom leather seats to some designs which I had come up with. “Bums on Seats” was the name for the series of eight different chairs with padded bottoms, showing eight different ways to sit e.g. left-leaning, legs apart or legs together. They were exhibited during design week at the V&A and are something that I'm still pretty proud of. Underneath each seat is embossed the name and details of the project. 

Ally Capellino 'Bums on Seats' series & AC yellow frame bag


Sadly, Junior's business acumen was not up to his engineering skills and the factory closed a few years ago, but we had already moved on as working with him was not always easy.


I include a link to a piece written by the Gentle Author for Spitalfields life in 2011. As well as a video made at the factory by Mike Chan.

And more about ‘bums on seats’ here

Ally Capellino brown frame bag

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