To get started with my shopping (or rather browsing) trip I
took a journey down to the most bustling shopping destination in London, Oxford
Street. World renowned department store Selfridges was first on my list. The
giant Yayoi Kusama statue towering above the main entrance was an impressive
welcome, promoting her collaboration with luxury brand Louis Vuitton. The
luxury however did not stop there. If you go up the main central escalators to
the womenswear floor you can find a host of classic designer brands, probably
more than in most people's wildest dreams. It is because of this 'everything
you could ever want' feel to the department store that hordes of tourists flock
here every day. Subsequently the main shop floor is extremely busy but if you
venture into the clean dust free individual boutiques of brands such as Chanel
and Jimmy Choo you will find the shopping experience a lot more peaceful.
Carrying on down Oxford Street to Oxford Circus you find two
side by side shops which are a must for any more on-budget shopper. Topshop and
Urban Outfitters are always a hive of activity, and due to their fast paced
music you find yourself looking through the fully stacked racks of clothes at a
fast speed, trying to find yourself a bargain outfit. Topshop's decor, even
though it is still fresh and up to date, is more minimal and takes a back seat
to the clothes. The yellow industrial looking ceiling, wooden floors and
metal furnishings in Urban Outfitters are more prominent. The quirky shop
interior of Urban Outfitters gives it a slightly more individual edge to
Topshop, giving it a feeling of being the trendy, hip place to be.
Next I headed further along in the Regent Street direction,
to Liberty on Great Marlborough Street. The traditional department store,
created in 1875, is a favourite place of mine to go and browse. The clothes are
ever so delicately laid out in their old traditional surroundings with
generally just one of each item on a rack. As Liberty is set back from the main
shopping area of Regents Street I think it is slightly less obvious to go into,
making it a lot more of a calm place to shop than somewhere like Selfridges. It
also specialises in selling high end womenswear and menswear, whereas
Selfridges has a mixture of both this and high street, obviously attracting more
customers.
Going across the road and down towards the back streets of
the area I came to Dover Street, housing Acne and Dover Street Market. These
are two totally different shops but both have a very similar feel of
individuality and chicness. Walking into the Acne store is something like
walking into a Scandinavian designed walk-in wardrobe. It has clean white walls
with faded wooden floorboards and the clothes are hung on the un-cramped rails
with meticulous perfection. Dover Street Market however is like being in an art
gallery. The disused shed type structures in the middle of some rooms seem like
an installation with the clothes filling in the space around them. Walking
around this shop feels like walking round an exhibition where things should be
looked at and not touched.
The last place that I visited in this central London area
was Browns Focus, an extension of the extremely successful Browns boutique.
This store concentrates on stocking more contemporary youthful brands. The
relatively small store on South Molton Street contains a wide range of styles
and brands for a fresher thinking, but still very sophisticated customer.
Travelling further towards the West, I stopped off in
Notting Hill to visit the Oxfam Boutique and Matches. The Oxfam Boutique unlike
most Oxfam shops, which are lighter in colour, is painted black on the exterior
to help it fit in next to its particularly luxurious neighbours. On the inside
it is small and slightly cramped, and the rails are bulging with stock. Selling
a mixture of second hand high street and designer wear the price tags are very
much varied. I suspect that this store wouldn’t be on most people’s ‘must go
to’ lists, however it is worthy of a quick flick through in between strolling
around the other boutiques in the area.
On my way round the corner to Matches I found a little
hidden gem called The Village Bicycle. This fun and quirky shop sells new, unheard
of designers that are a little bit more affordable than those sold in the
stores that I have visited previously. Aimed at a younger more hip audience,
the two floor boutique is decorated with pink fluorescent lights and animal
skin rugs. There is also a range of unusual magazines and trinkets so anybody,
with a small or large budget can make a special purchase.
Going into Matches was a real contrast to the exciting
atmosphere of The Village Bicycle. It’s a lot more serious and sophisticated.
Set up like a lot of timeless boutiques there are wooden floors and white walls
and with three stores on one street it is obviously doing well. Being set in an
area like Notting Hill, which is renowned for being an extremely wealthy area
of London, provides a readymade clientele for a shop like this. They stock a
big mixture of styles from all over the spectrum, from J Brand jeans for the
more casual to Givenchy dresses to be worn on a more formal occasion.
The west also saw me go to the stylish hang out, come retail
place to be, Bluebird in Chelsea. A walk down Kings Road, past a mass of
designer retailers, from Sloane Square, the Bluebird allows the stylish wealthy
youth of Chelsea to pop out of their million pound apartments to do a spot of
shopping and also grab a drink at the same time. Again the floor is wooden and
the walls are white, but instead of being your average boxy boutique, the shop
interior is spacious and airy. All the racks are spread out over the open plan
floor space and the ceiling goes high into the roof, exposing pipes which have
been painted over to tie in with the décor. This light airiness makes the shop,
in my opinion, a particularly pleasant shop to be in.
Flip towards the opposite side of the city and the east also
has a reputation for containing a hive of independent, trendy shops. I
travelled to Shoreditch to visit two boutiques, Start, the three store boutique
owned by Brix Smith Start and Present, the hip and stylish menswear boutique. Start
by far had the friendliest staff of all the shops that I visited. The girls in
there were more than happy to help with anything I needed, despite me not
looking at all rich enough to be able to afford to buy anything.
This non-snobby attitude is mimicked in the location of the stores in the
shabby chic back streets of Shoreditch. The whole shopping experience is very
down to earth, despite selling high fashion brands, with high fashion price
tags.
Present, located on Shoreditch High Street, has an exceedingly
‘cool’ feel to it when you step through the door. As well as their range of men’s
clothing, they sell a mixture of fashion magazines and books, so you can
immerse yourself in the culture of the shop, even if you cannot afford any of
the clothing that is on sale there.
From Shoreditch high street I walked down to the Brick Lane
area, the central hub for vintage clothes. Two of the best vintage shops around
there are Beyond Retro and Absolute Vintage. Both of these stores are located
in warehouse buildings with little or no furnishings at all. They purely
contain rails and rails of vintage items for you to sift your way through. The
low price tags of most of the garments makes delving into these treasure troves
of second hand apparels even more exciting as there is the prospect of you
finding a real worthwhile bargain.
After Brick Lane I just had one more stop at Sefton in
Islington. Again a menswear boutique, it is located on Upper Street and is bizarrely hidden in between contrasting shops like KFC and Budgens. They sell mostly designer streetwear and casual clothes with the
subtle edition of some Comme des Garcons wallets and accessories to input a
touch of luxury chic.
Due to the evolution of our society into a world of digital
media, online shops are now becoming just as exciting and important as the real
life ones.
A favourite online retailer of mine is notjustalabel.com,
which supports emerging design talent from across the world, allowing you to
purchase items straight from their studios. I think that this support of new fresh
talent is really important for fashion in order to shape the future industry.
Another favourite of mine is net-a-porter.com. This store
is like the Selfridges of the online world, stocking nearly every high end
brand that you could possibly want. It’s also very clean and classically set
out. It is also very easy to use, to allow a simple and easy shopping
experience for their customers.
Whilst on my browsing extravaganza I accidently missed off
two stores (oops) in the Oxford Street/Regent street area, Other Shop and the
original Browns boutique. Other Shop, which used to be called B-Store and
located on Savile Row, is now a cool and quirky boutique on Kingly Street.
Again, similarly to Acne, it has a slightly Scandinavian feel about it. It has
unstained wooden floorboards and simple sharp lines on the furniture, which
makes it not too fussy and over the top. However, to make sure that the shop
isn’t too boring and plain some of the furniture, for example chests of draws
which are used to display accessories, is painted bright and exciting colours.
Due to the location of this store, tucked away on a back street behind Liberty
it is not too busy, giving it a chilled out atmosphere.
Even though Browns still has a calm and relaxed atmosphere
in comparison to some of the shops actually located on Oxford Street, it does
not have the same stylish but casual atmosphere that Other Shop has. It is a
lot more traditional and straight laced. The staff follow you around as you
browse, immediately putting you on edge. Also there is one of each item on the
rails, in my opinion, making the racks seem a little bare. Because of its long
lasting reputation for selling the cream of the crop of designer brands and its
location just off Oxford Street it attracts a wide range of customers each
looking for a classy, stylish purchase.
