London | Spitalfields Market
Located in London’s east end, in Jack the Ripper territory, Spitalfields Market has been there for more than a century. It’s a haven for independent designers of clothes, jewellery, leathergoods and homewares. A lot of the stall holders don’t have store fronts so the only place you can buy is direct from them. There are a lot of artists selling paintings, prints and original photos, framed and unframed!
Sunday is the big day at Spitalfields and by 2 in the afternoon, it is wall to wall people so I’d advise getting there around 11 a.m. to have a reasonably laidback shopping experience. On Fridays, there are a lot less stalls but everything is dedicated to fashion design so if thats your passion, you could drop by then.
Above is a little charm necklace I bought from jewellery designer, Nicola Reid, who runs Lady Bugz and makes lovely bracelets, necklaces and earrings all in a ‘charm style’. She will also custom make jewellery in this style if you like for a very reasonable price.
My other favourite designer is the guy who runs Grade A t-shirts. He does some very clever image manipulation to come up with prints like the one above. Who would have thought Audery Hepburn could DJ?!? He has some other great designs like Bruce Lee with a skateboard and Bob Marley riding on a ‘chopper’ push bike. He also sells his t-shirts in a store called Alphabet on Monmouth Street (Covent Garden) but the biggest range is at Spitalfields.
Also look out for the ‘Voy’ designs with their lovely little bow motif on the skirts, shirts and coats.
It’s freezing in winter and stinking hot in summer but totally worth it. After shopping, you can always run across the road to the Ten Bells pub and soak up some history…as thats where Jack the Ripper alledgedly picked up his victims!!! Have fun!!!