Looking for charity shops and South Asian clothing in London

May 19, 2007 9:33 AM

My friend and I would like to go clothing shopping in London, UK at charity shops and other cheap places.

We're in Cambridge right now, so we'd be coming down for the day - but we have no idea of where to begin.

Specifically, we're looking for large charity shops (aka thrift stores) which would have a lot of selection; I especially like the Salvation Army, since they seem to be a fraction of the price of any other charity shop I've found in Cambridge (we're both looking in the £2-10 range, rather than the £10-30 range). We're going to stop by the Camden market sometime just to see what it's like, but I was hoping people could direct us to some cheaper places - we don't mind hunting among old sweatshirts to find the odd gem (as we did today in the Cambridge Sally Ann). We're looking just generally for interesting dresses (I was hoping we might find an evening gown for her for an event coming up, but it would have to be pretty unusual to get my friend into it), tops, skirts, trousers - okay, mostly we're just out to have fun digging through odd clothes like we were playing in a dress-up box. (And being able to afford what we find is fun too).

We're also interested in finding more South Asian style clothing - we both really like Indian fabrics and cuts, especially the style of the kameez top to the salwar kameez suit, or other, similar tunic-style tops. I've seen some online, but those are generally silk festival clothes, where we're looking for cotton and more casual styles. Are there any good places in London to find casual, cheap South Asian clothes, either second hand or new? I think both of us would prefer slightly more conservative (like long sleeves) to some of the more "designer" styles I've seen online.

Of course, we'd love to hear about charity shops which just happened to have a lot of South Asian clothing donated to them.

posted by jb to shopping (9 comments total)

Oxfam?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:40 AM on May 19, 2007

I find Oxfam pretty expensive (especially compared to the Sally Ann), but is there a particularly large or cheap Oxfam you would recommend? The ones in Cambridge are tiny, and only have a handful of clothes in the £10-30 range.
posted by jb at 9:47 AM on May 19, 2007

Perhaps a Londoner could suggest one. I no longer live in the UK.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:52 AM on May 19, 2007

for south asian clothing, tooting high street is a good bet - heavily asian community with lots of clothing shops concentrated in one area. just take the tube to tooting broadway and walk up, or tooting bec and walk down.
posted by wayward vagabond at 9:53 AM on May 19, 2007

Okay, I know I shouldn't be answering my own question, but since I just found this, I'll post it - London's Best Charity Shops

But if people have recommendations for specific charity shops they like, or for the second part of my question (about South Asian fashions), please do post.

on preview: wayward, that sounds really good, thanks. (Tooting Broadway - is that at the end of one of the tube lines?)
posted by jb at 9:54 AM on May 19, 2007

it's towards the end of the northern line, zone 3. there's gotta be about 20 asian clothing shops all up and down the high street (not to mention great curry houses!)
posted by wayward vagabond at 9:58 AM on May 19, 2007

I have a suspicion that the charity shops in London vary their prices according to location, so the ones in Notting Hill will sell the same item for more than it would sell in Hackney. And I think the big charities sort stuff centrally and send it to shops where it will be more likely to sell. So the designer stuff will get sent to Kensington and Chelsea and Notting Hill and so on.

And by extension, for Asian stuff, you are going to have to go to the areas with larger Asian populations.

There are charity shops all over the place, you shouldn't have too much problem finding one, but the difficulty will be finding ones that sell the stuff you want (but that's the joy of charity shop trawls, right?).

What you really want are areas where there are lots of charity shops fairly close together, so your trawl will have more success. There's no point in going to just one shop. I liked the timeout article, but I think that was it's failing, there's no point making a special journey to the Oxfam in Hackney as it's the only charity shop in the area (lucky me, I live nearby!)

My top recommendation would be Walthamstow, it's a bit far out, in Zone 3 at the northern end of the Victoria Line. If you are coming to do some site seeing and other cool stuff as well as charity shops, it will probably take more time than you'd like. But, it has a good range of charity shops, there's about 5 on High Street, including an enormous Oxfam at the bottom end. Other highlights are an Islamic Relief shop, which would satisfy your Asian needs, and not really what you're looking for, but I'll mention it for prosperity, a fantastic Salvation Army thrift store, which is ok for clothes, but fantastic for furniture. (I should probably point out, in case of confusion, neither of those shops are on High Street, Islamic Relief is on Hoe Street north of High Street, and the Sally Army is on Forest Road opposite Lloyd Park).

Evening gowns will be hard to come by, although there might be a few, but Walthamstow's trump card would be the market, which runs the length of the High Street (allegedly the longest street market in Europe) it has many Asian clothes stalls, lots of general clothes stalls, and a couple of fabric stalls. And there are some other great shops along the street as well.

If you are coming from Cambridge purely for cheap clothes, you could get a train that stops at Tottenham Hale, and from there it's only two stops on the tube to Walthamstow. So you could spend the day there without going to central London. There are other cool things to do in the area if you do decide to do this, but it wouldn't be your typical day trip to London! (If you want suggestions, email me)

Failing that (one day the world will come round to my way of thinking and recognise the wonders of the 'stow), here are some other suggestions...

It's been a while since I've been shopping there (that's given me an idea for something to do tomorrow... ) but I'd be surprised if Camden Market didn't have some charity shops in the vicinity. There are certainly a few 'retro' clothing shops and stalls selling second hand stuff, but I often question their idea of cheap (I don't like spending a tenner on a brand new tshirt, let alone a second hand one!). You should probably bear in mind that Camden Market isn't just one market, there's several, and lots of connecting streets with shops. You could spend all day there if you wanted too.

You could also try Portobello Road market, especially towards the northern end, where the clothing stalls are. I think there are also some charity shops along the street as well.

Another small congregation of charity shops I stumbled upon after I had a bad job interview in the area was in Pimlico. I think I ended up somewhere around Warwick Way (it was a bad interview, my memory is a little hazy), there were a couple of retro clothing shops, and several charity shops (including a Romanian Relief one that specialised in children's stuff). This area had the advantage that Pimlico is a 'nice' area, but not so 'nice' that all the stuff in the charity shops was designer and priced expensively.

There are also a couple of charity shops in Islington along Upper Street. I've not done a proper investigation of charity shops in this area yet so I don't know how great the pickings are (the Hackney Oxfam is so close it tends to satisfy my current charity shop cravings). If you started at Highbury and Islington Tube (where there is a large cancer research shop) and worked down Upper Street, you pass a couple of shops. You should also take a detour along Essex Road, as there are a few shops along there too. Near Islington Green there are also some antiques shops that might be interesting. This would be a long walk, but you should get some rewards (and there are plenty of restuarants, pubs and bars along the way to rest in).

My suggestion, if you are dead set on doing Camden (you're students, right? You have to!), is to go there, then go to Islington. You can get an overground train from Camden Road station to Highbury and Islington station and if you did that you could pretend to be locals as well!

I also think you need to buy or beg an A to Z, if you are going to follow any of this successfully!
posted by Helga-woo at 4:37 PM on May 19, 2007

There are a couple of useful charity shops at the North end of Tachbrook Street, next to an amazing shop for vintage clothes, Cornucopia. Easy walking distance of Victoria underground/tube/coach station but unfortunately in the other direction from the more expensive cluster to the north, including the clothes exchange (half to charity, half to the seller) 30 Elizabeth Street, London and the British Red Cross, 85 Ebury St, SW1 and another close to it ?Oxfam -- you might want to save those if all else fails for a cheaper evening dress, but I have been caught out by them closing unexpectedly early -- maybe 4 or 4.30.

You might also enjoy Portobello Road market which has clothes and general stuff as well as its famous antiques. Shepherd's Bush market has fabulous sari fabrics, but i remember the exotic made-up clothes as being more Afro-Caribbean. It is much less of a tourist attraction than Portobello Road or Petticoat Lane which is famous for ordinary clothes but no doubt has exotic ones too.

Have fun!
posted by Idcoytco at 5:10 PM on May 19, 2007

2nd. Tooting High St. There is a fairly large and fairly cheap Oxfam,three or four other charity shops and loads of cheap first hand Indian/ Bangladeshi clothes shops in the street and in the two covered markets.
If hungry try Mirch Masala and don't leave without getting a dozen samosas from Pooja Sweets.
posted by Dr.Pill at 5:33 PM on May 19, 2007