JOY opens in Southwark Street

JOY, which sells clothes as well as cards and gifts, opened at lunchtime on Thursday and to celebrate promised free outfits to the first 25 customers wearing only underwear.

But at least fifty people of all ages wearing swimwear or no more than bra and pants joined the queue at the Sumner Street door as crowds built up on both sides of the road. Many had dashed out of the IPC offices upstairs. Within thirty minutes anyone who had stripped down to endure a chilly wind was rewarded with new clothing.

JOY Bankside is on the ground floor of the new Blue Fin building behind Tate Modern. Other branches are in Bristol, Glasgow, York and Edinburgh.