London is a fashion fairground

 

 

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.