Pics: Santa’s Ghetto (Christmas the Banksy way)

fashion.psfk popped down to see the "squat art concept store" that has landed in the vacant Clark’s store on Oxford Street this year. Founded by Banksy, Santa’s Ghetto is a supermarket of street art- showcasing work from 20 ‘underground’ artists including David Shrigley, Jamie Hewlett, Space Invader and Paul Insect (and Banksy himself of course), all of which is available to buy.

In the ironic words of Banksy- "I felt the spirit of Christmas was being lost, it was
becoming increasingly uncommercialised and more and more to do with
religion so we decided to open our own shop and sell pointless stuff
you didn’t need". Looks like they’re doing pretty good business, there are often queues to get in and it was pretty packed when we were there. The store is open until 23rd December, although it looks like they may be sold out well before then…

see more images here or pictures from previous years here and here
read two sides of the story- The Guardian’s article and a rather scathing review from Spiked