Wanna Shop in the UK?

Special thanks to thanks to Carrie Bishop (@carriebish), a generous dapperQ in the UK who put together a list of inviting fashion options for us in England (and one in France.)  If any other readers would like to put together posts for their own towns, domestic or international, we’d welcome them with open arms!  And no fear, all these  spots will be up on mapperQ soon.

• I buy all my shirts at Thomas Pink – their women’s City shirts are especially good as they’re the least fitted (and Jermyn Street is generally excellent for shirts and soforth).  Their flagship store is at 85 Jermyn Street
• I used Souster and Hicks tailors for my Civil Partnership (i.e. gay wedding) suit and they were lovely and really listened to what I wanted.  They’re outside of London in Bedfordshire
• I hear via Diva Magazine (@DIVAmagazine – basically the UK’s only lesbian magazine) that The Butch Clothing Company in Brighton, is good for suits
• Dover Street Market is amazing (though very expensive, reflected by the fact that it’s near Bond Street, the UK equivalent of Rodeo Drive) and it’s the home of Comme Des Garcons in London.  It’s a bit intimidating at first as it doesn’t even look like a store, but there’s something great on every floor and the staff are friendly
• OK, this isn’t strictly in the UK but what the heck, it’s just a 2 hour Eurostar trip to Paris to Colette, which is another amazing store on Rue Saint-Honore that sells a range of high-end street wear and quirkier designers (more Comme Des Garcons, plus nice designers like Kitsune) and it’s right by the Louvre so you can pay a visit to Mona Lisa at the same time
• Back in London, Paul Smith does beautiful menswear – it’s definitely slim-fitting (too slim for me!) but the quality and design are amazing – I sometimes just walk around the store in Covent Garden just for inspiration.  The shoes are great too (drool)
• Oh yeah, and we have Trickers on Jermyn Street too (swoon)
• These are the designers, Agi and Sam, I linked to on Twitter the other day – I don’t know much about them but I love their stuff
• I’m hearing that Reiss (which I think exists in the US too) has just introduced a tailoring service to their Regents Street store, which could be good news for women wanting to adapt menswear, since Reiss do some inexpensive, nice (if slightly boring) suits.  I’m not yet sure whether they’re prepared to adapt menswear for women – I’m planning to go there in the next couple of weeks to find out.
• For a great shopping experience and some unique stores you should head to Spitalfields in London. Dray Walk has the best selection for DapperQs, like Son of a Stag, which does self edge denim, and Number Six, which does all manner of cool stuff.  There are also two markets, a Rough Trade record shop, and millions of great food places (it is the home of London’s Bangladeshi community so lots of curry, plus it used to be the Jewish quarter so there’s a great 24 hour bagel/beigel shop that is worth the trip alone).