Some photos from my recent shopping trip in London (info at the bottom) -
When I'm in London I usually go to areas such as Oxford street, Chelsea, Kensington and Knightsbridge. However this time I decided to have a look around some of the famous markets London has to offer -
Camden Market -
Camden is currently the 4th most popular tourist attraction in London, where you'll find everything from vintage and retro pieces, alternative fashion (Gothic/punk stores), antiques, furniture, jewellery, Records/Cd's and crafty stores. (make sure it's the main market you visit as you will pass a small market, which says The Camden Market on it, it lies the Camden Market is further down the road and way more extravagant.
You can find some gorgeous one-off items in Camden and i'ts such a unique place with artwork on all of the buildings, beautiful statues, along with endless places to eat. It is definitely worth a visit as there is something for everyone, they have regular stores close-by such as H&M and All Saints too, if the busy market is too much for you. Another thing to note is that you'll find yourself passing the same stall a few times as it's very easy to loose your bearings.
Make sure you get here early and have a lot of time to look around, I'd say you need at least half the day to see everything important.
I picked up a few nice things from Camden (Haul coming soon)
Petticoat Lane Market -
This place was not my cup of tea, this is like a real market with sellers shouting out prices, bothering you to get you to look at there stalls which according to them consist of designer items, however in reality you can find a few high street names and a lot of noticeably fake designer things. People are constantly knocking past you, and I was alerted about 10 times to keep an eye on my bag and valuables. Definitely NOT FOR ME I'm more of a new age market kind of girl which is exactly what Spitalfields Market is and as it was only a short walk away, I headed there after only about 10 minutes at Petticoat Lane.
Spitalfields Market -
Home of the first and main All Saints store, Spitalfields is similar to Camden Market however it is indoors and most items are more expensive. I went on Sunday which is the busiest day, it's stalls consist of clothes and jewellery by unique and independent designers, vintage items, souvenirs, home decor and ornaments.
Warning !! you will get hungry whilst looking around here there are many organic, exclusive food stalls from Carribean to Thai (and a shops selling wraps which had the same name as me, this of course impressed me the most :) ) . There were many stalls selling baked goods, all i saw were giant pieces of cake and donuts which made my mouth water every time I looked in that direction !!
The area is very vibrant an lively, away from the main market there are Fashion boutiques (I particularly liked Bolongaro Trevor), lifestyle and design stores, bars and restaurants and coffee/tea shops.
Brick lane Market -
The home of all things vintage and retro!! All of the stalls are very random and differ from each other, however they are mainly full of quirky and bohemian fashion, making it a place packed with young people and definitely an area hipsters would love as it is also the main place to visit for trendy cafes and edgy bars.
The market is very big and spreads across a large area and many streets. I feel that many of the stalls here are overpriced for what they are selling, when old clothes are labelled vintage it seems they think they can triple the price however to me vintage means bargain, (such as the song thrift shop suggests, shopping with only $20 in your pocket :p), so I wasn't overly impressed.
However I was impressed by the large amounts of amazing street art and also the huge food market which offers food from all around the world, particularly Asia and India.
