Vintage clothes shopping in London

I’ve just been looking at some lovely vintage handbags. I always thought I wasn’t a handbag sort of person… but soft black velvet and white ostrich feathers, with a diamante clasp? Vintage fashion has changed my mind!

Fortunately for fashionistas who love their clothes with a retro stylee, London is full of vintage clothes shops. So here’s a quick run down of where to look. I’m sure I’ve missed a few out – so please, if you know of more, do let me know.

Camden Market has always been a place to head for slightly off-the-beaten-track fashion, and that includes vintage clothes. Rokit, at 225 Camden High Street[map], is best at weekends, when the upper floor with party and evening wear is open.Then there’s Episode at 26 Chalk Farm Road[map], part of a Dutch-based chain selling second hand clothing. Episode has reasonable prices and quite nice clothes, but nothing really wild – it’s the smaller market stalls you’ll want to look at for the really way-out and outrageous pieces.

Ask cognoscenti of the vintage scene and they’ll always mention What the Butler Wore [map] at 131 Lower Marsh, near Waterloo. This store has a stunning assortment of vintage designs with lots of 60s and 70s stuff.  If you’re into 60′s chic this is definitely your kind of place. Prices seem pretty reasonable, too – they’ve got an Otto Graf black silk shift dress to die for, except that at £35 you don’t have to die for it.  There’s online shopping too if you can’t get to SE1. But then you won’t get to see the shop’s cat …

Beyond Retro has a huge warehouse of vintage clothing off Brick Lane[map] at 110-2 Cheshire Street. It really is massive; apparently there are fifteen thousand items in stock, making it the hypermarket of vintage fashion. There’s now also a Beyond Retro Soho at 59 Great Marlborough Street [map]. And this month, Beyond Retro also has a ‘pop up shop’ in Selfridges, which has gone 90′s vintage (goodness, 1990 was only 20 years ago – you know you’re getting older when ‘vintage’ seems to be getting younger!) till the end of January.

Not far away from the original Beyond Retro is Absolute Vintage - particularly good for handbags and shoes.  Prices are around £20 for a handbag, £25 for a pair of shoes, so it’s not outrageously cheap, but the stock is all lovely.  There are sometimes a few bargains, too – some great headgear too.

Stoke Newington is quite a fashionable place these days and has its own retro shop, Ribbons & Taylor, at 157 Stoke Newington Chruch Street[map]. I thought it would be pricey given its location, but apparently not – dresses cost as little as £16 and blokes can get a shirt for £6 or so, which puts it on a par with many charity shops. Some of the admittedly small (by Beyond Retr0 standards) stock is just stunning, including some really wild Hawaiian shirts.

And of course there are always the charity shops – some people swear by the Oxfam on Kingsland Road, though it’s too full of old kid’s toys and cheap t-shirts for me, while the Notting Hill and Kensington charity shops have gorgeous stock but sometimes high prices. But it’s always good to look, and you can sometimes find a real bargain.

Photo by bitch buzz on flickr