The AllBright Club: London’s first of its Kind Women’s Club

London is all set to welcome its first female-led clubs on 8^th March 2018. On International Women’s Day, Debbie Wosskow and Anna Jones will open “The AllBright.” The AllBright is Britain’s first members-only club specifically for businesswomen. It is named ‘The AllBright’ after the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright.

The duo was inspired when Ms Albright said, “ There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.”

Anna Jones was the former chief executive of Hearst magazine UK.  While Debbie Wosskow is a serial entrepreneur. The club calls it as a unique space for UK women to create, connect and collaborate. The official page says, “The club will be a space for women to thrive. Members will access space to work, host meetings and socialise along with curated events, talks, exhibitions, debates and networking meet-ups. Our on site treatment rooms will also allow members to relax, recharge and meditate.” It will have a blow-dry bar, a yoga studio and a bar and kitchen as well.

The only way to be a part of the club is to become a member of it. Membership is priced at £750 and £675 for under 27 plus a joining fee of £300.

The Independent reported that “Gender parity is the ultimate goal. Britain has had six queens and two female prime ministers, yet only seven FTSE 100 companies are run by women.” Further, it was added that “As little as two percent of all start-up capital goes to female entrepreneurs.”

“The statistics are so, so, so far off the mark that we’re very unapologetic” about membership being women-only, Jones said to the Independent.

The primary moto of the club seems to be drawn out from Virginia Woolf. Not only does their website’s first line reflects this inspiration but the very location of the club speaks volumes. It read, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction, wrote Bloomsbury-based author Virginia Woolf in 1929. Almost a century later, economic independence and space to create remain essential to professional success. Opening the AllBright in the heart of Bloomsbury is a nod to the progressive ideals of Woolf and her friends.”

The AllBright Club has materialized its deep values and morals in the form of décor. The different corners of the club had drawn inspiration from various women and depict their work and time.

The Independent reported that right from wine to hand soap, everything is supplied by women-led enterprises. 

Ms Wosskow said to The Guardian that, “We see this space as being part of a movement. We are ambitious because the scale of change that needs to happen for women in the workplace is great. And if we can help women build networks, skills and confidence they can deploy outside this building, then we believe we can do that.”

The AllBright is not one of its kind in the world. The duo, in fact, mentioned that they were inspired by “The Wing” in New York. Various such clubs are cropping up after drawing inspiration from their predecessors across the globe. Such spaces offer women their own space to think, create, discuss, debate and deliberate.

The AllBright club is the perfect antidote to the pretty such stereotyped and stringent gentlemen clubs. But the AllBright is not anti-men.The Financial Times reported that “Anna Jones, former chief executive of Hearst Magazines UK, said the club was not “anti-men”. “It’s about celebrating women,” she said.”

Pic Credit: The Independent

Also Read: Niti Aayog Launching Women Entrepreneurs’ Cell

Reshma Ganeshbabu is an intern with SheThePeople.tv