Fabric Shopping in Tokyo

Ladies and gents,

If ever there were a time for one to lose their cool, it would be on the wrong side of the world with fabric money to burn. I'm so disinterested in the bright lights (and loud noises) of Tokyo that I'd only really really meticulously researched a couple of tap classes and a whole day of self-indulgent fabric shopping. Honestly, not much else. I also chose my hostel based on its proximity to Nippori fabric town. One track mind, you know?

Somehow my visit also collided perfectly with some sort of festival in Nippori where every shop was offering 10% off!

I'd arrived with the hope of finding some good jacket and trouser-weight fabrics (British summers, eh?) but had low expectations after feeling how sunny and muggy it was during my stay (late May, early June). I even spotted a few unlined suit jackets around the city. Let me tell you one thing, the Japanese LOVE stripes, I didn't realise how prevalent they were on the streets until after I'd seen so much for sale in Nippori. Then I couldn't unsee it on almost every other person in the city!

I saw a salaryman on the metro who had a plain white shirt on but the CF buttons changed colour as you moved down the placket - an idea I may copy in the near future. A wink of novelty detail.

Anyway. Fabric town. Fabric town in the rain with a sale on.

I prodded almost everything on that street! I needn't have checked my map when I arrived shortly after 10am as the first shop I saw (Momo) had a gaggle of women fawning over its remnants and bolts. Must be sale time. This shop had beautiful stock, some of which was imported from across the world. It wasn't the cheapest and I was sad to leave a beautiful green linen on the shelf because it was 1,500 JPY/m but only 100cm wide.

Pinstripe linen fabric (baseball vibe? Maybe I was thinking about baseball)

I went a bit loopy in the first 3 shops I visited, picking up some of the obscenely cheap stuff in bundles, and (hopefully) some better quality stuff too. A couple of times I had to warn myself to stay away from anything I could pick up in England for similar value. I mean, if you go to Japan and only buy European imports, you're kinda missing the point.

Turquoise cotton. I'm obsessed with tiling patterns at the moment.

Teal/Turquoise lining from a bargain bundle. I also got an ivory one but forgot to photo it

Cotton with a slubby/greyish background and wonderful colourful thumbprints.

There were a few cosplay shops, a few leather shops and some speciality knit stores too. The knits were mostly loose (like Girl Charlee's hacci sweater knit) so I wasn't too interested, but there was a lot of great sweatshirting around. I came away with some for another Nike hoodie.

Crinkle-effect floral sweater jersey. Navy/taupe colours.

Then there was Tomato. It was chaos! It took me  a while to figure out the system (bring a buddy, one waits in the cutting line while the other gathers bolts for cutting). Don't ask me how the floors/shops are split up. I have no clue.

Double-sided herringbone print stuff. It's really soft and quite fluffy, maybe somewhere between microfibre and brushed finish. Very strokeable.

Paper crane print quilting cotton. Probably for pockets.

Waterproof nylon. For that time I decided I wanted to make an umbrella.

White silk habotai. I got 5 metres because the price was good, but this is all that's left!

Oh for the love of novelty prints! You need a novelty print cotton for a very specific theme/item? Of course they'll have 3 for you to choose from here!

Dinosaur quilting cotton. Because why not?

To be honest, I had a better time in the smaller shops, I got pretty grumpy in Tomato pretty quickly. But I did find some good linings - one of which I have fawned over in Cloth House before.

I was expecting to find a bit more in the way of nice linings that I've coveted in Cloth House actually, but there were surprisingly few. This probably means more pining in Cloth House in my future...

After Nippori I headed to Shinjuku to visit Sekaido (art supply store - no real sewing stuff except for an infinite number of Frixion pens) and Bunka Fashion School. I missed their open day and show by a few days but was mostly there for the shop. After wandering around the campus trying to find it myself (looking like a complete yutz) I finally resorted to asking the security guard (using a system of mime, grunts and overly gracious thank yous). The keyword was koubai and it's in the basement level (main building, take a lift down, it's on the left of the cafe). I picked up some tools, cheap leathers and embroidery thread. I also prodded almost everything in this shop.

This is what's left of the leathers, they were used in  the patches on my merch bags 

After Shinjuku, next was Shibuya and Tokyu Hands flagship store. I was told to be prepared for "everything you can think of", which captures its spirit very well! Again, I wasn't prepared for it to be this massive! Sewing-wise I picked up some webbing and some elastics. Its sewing floor isn't particularly extensive, but the amazing thing about this shop is that it stocks almost everything else (except books). Peripherally I also got some tiny coathangers/buldog clips to hang patterns.

After this in one day I was pretty exhausted. One day of massively indulgent fabric shopping. Oh the greed. And as always I think I came away with nothing I'd planned on, while still ticking off a huge proportion of my list!

Keeping it all wrapped up for 6 days until coming back to the UK was excruciating, but loading it into my poor broken suitcase and dragging it home was brutal!

Wheel #1

Wheel #2

Repair in progress (shamefully still in progress)

(#noregrets)

One single day planned, done and dusted. Was this the best bit of trip? No, but I could enjoy the rest of my 2 weeks undistracted by textiles. Except for one very important pilgrimage...to the Nani Iro atelier.

Perhaps I didn't show enough decorum in its hallowed halls. Perhaps I should have looked a little more closely at the other shops in this arcade. Nope. Atelier Nani Iro was the destination and the staff were very polite when dealing with a sweaty, overexcited foreigner. I left with a beautiful haul and a very light wallet. It was good.

Five Senses print (see in the online store)

Shine Many Ways print (see in the online store)

SAAA SAAA Rondo print (see in the online store)

Poppy Trip print (see in the online store)

Bed Grass Cozy print (see in the online store)

Lei Nani - For Beautiful Corolla - Sea Hawaii print (see in online shop)

So that's it, what should I do with it all?

K

Internet resources used to plan fabric shopping

Cashmerette's day out in Tokyo
Tilly's trip to Japan
Japanesesewingbooks directions to Nani Iro
Daphnesensei's post about Bunka

Oh, I'll admit it's predictable...

Hei!

Let's start today with a quiz:

You are in Stockholm Arlanda Airport, you and your accomplice  need to buy dinner. You go to a Cafe Ritazza and order two teas and two sandwich baguettes. How much does that cost you in total?

Twenty. Three. Quid.

Thanks Sweden, I was worried I'd be stuck with a bunch of unspent SEK at the end of the trip!

ANYWAY...

Travel. There are few things better in life than a good bit of travel.

If you spend your time in a new town hunting for fabric shops and haberdasheries, chances are you're much happier to go off the beaten track, go where the locals go and see a lot more of the actual town than the standard attractions. You can just take an hour though it's normally the home of the friendly, talkative people who will show off their own projects to you. The latter will obviously take a lot longer. The other advantage is the lack of queues, touts and other foreigners in your way ;)

There are also some good recommendations for Stockholm here on Artisan Square and Tripadvisor  though I'm not sure how outdated they are now.

With that in mind, we found a few good stores in Stockholm that are well worth a visit.

First Stop: Yarn Shop
We had an hour to spare, so went hunting (in completely the wrong direction) for a fabric shop and stumbled across Ekens Garn instead. B, being the Crochet Kid, was very keen to take a look. He assures the quality and variety in here is absolutely excellent. I just like the pretty colours.

The owners are absolutely lovely, one is Swedish and the other is South African and is very keen to show off his sample garments and impressive projects. One was a crochet v-neck jumper that is totally reversible and has a different pattern on each side. Impressive does not cover it.

Ekens Garn, Ringvägen 64, 118 61 Stockholm. Tel. +46 (0) 8/642 00 13

The closest underground stop was Skanstulls, but there are buses and trams nearby too. You can follow the shop on Twitter and Facebook too.

We bashfully admitted to the owners that we had no clue where we were going and asked if they knew of any good fabric shops nearby. They in turn asked the other customers in the shop. Boy did they recommend a good'un. And they drew all the directions out on a map so we didn't get lost either, lovely!


Fabric Shops in Stockholm

I. Tygverket
This place is tough to find. Famously described as having an entrance that 'looks like a cave', we nearly gave up hope and missed it.

Don't miss it. The design on the sign looks like a tape measure. You'll spot it.

The shop has damn near everything under the sun. I can only imagine it's the fabric Mecca of Stockholm.

The garment fabrics take up the main area, then upholstery arount the edges and there's a corner dedicated to quilting at the back too. You will find the standard garment fabrics, but a lot of bold in uncommon weaves and textures too. It's fairly easily organised by fabric type, but it does pay to hunt around too. A word of warning: it's quite pricey. It's very nice stuff, possibly even designer ends, but you'll pay accordingly.

Sankt Paulsgatan 19, 118 46 Stockholm. Tel. +46 8 714 99 11

The closest underground stop was Slussen, their website is here but their full range isn't available online.

II. Tygverket Number 2

I didn't get a chance to head in here, but it's stocked to the nines with beautiful Liberty fabrics and fancy notions. Everything is beautifully organised and there may be extra space at the back for garments to be displayed too. I think I caught a glimpse of a few indie patterns through the doors too.

Sankt Paulsgatan 3,  Stockholm

Here's the thing, this shop is either vey new or a branch of Tygverket above. Having tried to find it on Google, it's in the location of the old Crumpler Shop.

The closest stop was also Slussen, this one is handily somewhere between the station and the shop above.

If anyone visits, let me know what you think!

III. Finally, Karmosin

An odd little shop, you'll spot it because of the remnant bins outside. All handily priced at 39SEK/m (the measures are not cut squarely into 1m so the price will vary). The owner, I think also makes custom pieces and there are a few beautiful projects on display. The man is up for a chat, and very keen on having a glass of wine on his balcony.

 

Östgötagatan 83, 116 64 Stockholm, Sweden

The nearest tube stop is Skanstulls as well, I walked away with some summery cottons you'll see soon, and you can see what to expect from Karmosin on its website.

So those are the ones we passed and managed to get to. There might be department stors around too, but if you have limited time in the city these are definitely worth a look!

The Next Challenge

I'll admit Tygverket was a bit overwhelming. Having just completed Q2's fabric stock-up, and knowing we were on a crazy time limit (15 mins), the thought of trawling through Tygverket's whole stock wasn't very inspiring. I really could not be fudged.

And so The Next Challenge was born. 

B and I would choose 1.5m fabric for each other to sew up. Feels a bit like Project Runway.

He's just started sewing, I didn't want to push him totally beyond his budding skillset, so I chose something quirky but fairly easy to handle. This is a soft, pure linen which would be great for tops and summer shorts/trousers. So 1.5m for B!

Of course, my comfort zone can take a bit of bashing and so B has the luxury of throwing anything at me. I was itching to see what was waiting in my bag...

A stripey velvet. OH HELL NO.

I'd better get planning...you know...slowly...

Byeeeeeee,
Katrina