Fast and loose: master baker
Patrick Cox
Collette Lyons meets legendary shoe designer
turned Soho cupcake king Patrick Cox - one of the
characters bringing sexy to the city.
Fast and loose: master baker
Patrick Cox
Collette Lyons meets legendary shoe designer
turned Soho cupcake king Patrick Cox - one of the
characters bringing sexy to the city.
Fast and loose: master baker
Patrick Cox
Collette Lyons meets legendary shoe designer
turned Soho cupcake king Patrick Cox - one of the
characters bringing sexy to the city.
Surprisingly, Patrick Cox's new shop isn't in the business of fine footwear. 'In this neighbourhood?' says the legendary shoe designer with a laugh. ‘No way. You couldn't sell £500 shoes here.' Instead, the neon lit glossy black store in London W1 sells cakes, laid out like glittering jewels, and saucily decorated with 'cocks, tits and ass'. Patrick was brought up on ‘white trash Americana cakes baked by my mom'. When he moved to London she sent him cake parcels, 'and all my friends would descend and devour them in a day’. The idea grew then. He even had a name so good he couldn't let it go to waste, but he was too busy designing shoes to do anything about it.
Then a year ago a friend offered him an empty shop in Soho. The shop used to be a sex shop, with a sex shop downstairs, and a sex shop next door. 'And finally I got the chance to yell "It's perfect! Cox Cookies Cake." I told my mom
and she said, "Oh Patrick, I know where you’re going with this." And I said, "Yup, we totally are." But really I never planned to actually make cock cakes: I thought it would put people off. But then ten people a day were coming in to the shop saying, “We see the cakes, we see the cookies but where are the cocks?"
Injecting a bit of naughty fun into the cupcake revival came naturally to Patrick. 'The cakes are cute and they're fun. It's not the ew-I-don’t-want-to-see-that kind of sex, it’s the nudge-nudge-wink-wink kind of sex. Having said that, I feel like I've violated vanilla for good.’ But in violating vanilla, Patrick celebrates Soho, the part of London he loves the most. 'It's the mix of people. The food. The vibe. The darkness. The sleaziness. The sex shop aspect. It's the last real neighbourhood in London.'
coxcookiesandcake.com