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Whether you're looking for second-hand clothes or bespoke tailoring, antiques or modern furniture, this guide features over 3000 useful shops and services.
Here they are, London’s 100 best shops. From creaky old icons to Brit classics with genuine heritage, slick concept stores, vintage clothing shops, indie oddities, and the biggest and brashest high street stalwarts – Time Out’s got them all covered.
Browse the full list below, click on each shop to read more and tell us what you think in the comments.
An extraordinary big brand packed charity shop.
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Candy-coloured crops and whips, and a Valentine-themed dildo: Sh! is London's women-orientated sex shop.
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This is by far London's smelliest, stinkiest shop – only for the truly cheese-obsessed.
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Clothes, accessories, furniture and bric-à-brac are all artfully arranged at this Stoke Newington vintage store.
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Browse an impressive range of international newspapers and hard-to-find mags at this newsagent.
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This hyper-modern optical shop is an unmissable addition to Conduit Street's hip hub of Brit brands.
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A forerunner of the organic movement in the early 1980s, Neal's Yard is still going strong.
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This canal-side store showcases furniture and homeware by Britain's maverick designer Tom Dixon.
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This teeny record store attracts crate diggers from across London on the hunt for rare vinyl gems.
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Shoreditch and Mrs Jones have a thing going on; a riotous vintage fashion showroom.
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A good, if ramshackle, collection of vintage clothing, furniture and bric-a-brac can be found here.
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Specialist in global food – think Mediterranean flavours from Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and more.
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Endearingly cluttered, Super 8 movie store selling film, cameras and projectors, with a nice sideline in sweets and fags.
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Designed as a central hub for Lomo users, the store also hosts workshops and events.
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This gorgeous boutique hosts a full range of scented candles in an abundance of shapes and colours.
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Once a tiny recording studio, The Rolling Stones among other huge acts recorded here in the 1960s.
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This once derelict store grows its own (there are a fish farm, rooftop chicken coop and allotments on site).
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Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Rihanna and Katy Perry's preferred (latex) fashion designer on Holloway Road.
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Little Paris's buyers hop over the Channel every three weeks to bring you vintage French ephemera.
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Pak's is an Aladdin's cave of African and Afro-Caribbean hair and beauty products.
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This old-school apothecary specialises in natural beauty products and health remedies.
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King of the (albeit niche) market of superior quality umbrellas.
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The jaw-droppingly huge, slightly frightening, iconic toyshop.
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This one-time backyard independent is now a one-stop shop for gardener's essentials.
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This menswear label dresses well-heeled gents, fashion editors and regular guys who like no-nonsense style.
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Damien Hirst's unique, arty products, prints, T-shirts, jewellery and an eclectic range of gifts.
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Lily Allen and her half-sister Sarah Owen's rather brilliant vintage-dress shop.
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This pocket-sized vintage shop is stocked by Gallic owner Margot Waggoner.
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Plastic fantastic jewellery, from guitar-plectrum charm bracelets to kitsch anchor necklaces.
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This barber has been pampering men since 1875 and offers both a range of fragrances and grooming products.
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London's most refined charity shop is packed with mega-brands, couture and it-bags.
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Behold, a shoe chandelier! Kurt Geiger's Covent Garden flagship will knock your socks (and shoes) off.
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Browse the work of a collective of young artisans, from gifts to fashion, accessories and knick-knackery.
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The Vintage Showroom is the finest men's vintage outfitter in London.
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This legendary art shop has been trading since 1855. Professional artists, particularly print makers, swear by it.
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Curated by the creative director of Topman and Matthew Murphy of b Store, it's a world away from the high street.
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You'll find a good range of top-end street brands at this clothing store.
Packed to the rafters with handsome twentieth-century home decor and 'spirited' traders.
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This Marble Arch, flagship M&S is the brand's largest outlet in the country.
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Darkly lit menswear boutique with a well-edited selection from the likes of Adam Kimmel and Ann Demeulemeester.
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Established in 1979, Gay's the Word is Britain's only dedicated gay and lesbian bookshop.
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Your neighbourhood emporium stocking hipster apartment essentials such as dolls' eyes and pickled animal foetuses.
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The doors are always flung open at this lively dance-vinyl hub.
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John Lewis's new, imposing glass building looking out over the Olympic park.
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A well-edited selection of covetable mid-range designer labels.
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Amazing contemporary furniture, lighting and homewares.
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Chic bikes for urban cyclists – a fashionable, practical range of bikes and accessories.
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The venerable old auntie of department stores, HoF is hot again!
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Cass Art has a stellar array of artistic materials in its outlets across the capital.
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The grown-up sister of H&M actually looks more like Gap's posh sibling.
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This celebrity-endorsed mega brand seen hanging from the fine wrists of Alexa Chung et al.
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The long-established Knightsbridge outlet of this classic eyewear brand.
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Cute double-decker boutique concept that is impossibly girly up top and appropriately manly down below.
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One of London's best indie boutiques, with its own, brilliant in-house brand.
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The super-sharp premium high-street brand overseen by retail expert Jane Shepherdson.
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A boutique bookshop specialising in art, photography and music books.
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This store specialises in beautiful and unusual eyewear – both antique and modern.
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This Tottenham Court Road icon has been furnishing Londoners’ homes since 1810.
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Heir apparent to Christian Louboutin as the world’s most craved women’s cobbler.
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If it's a visual medium or phenomenon, this art and design specialist has got a book on it.
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Guide books, maps and fiction are housed in an eye-poppingly beautiful shop fit.
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Lina Stores is a Soho institution.
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The high-street favourite of style bloggers and fashion editors.
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The London outpost of the brand’s diffusion line, Marc by Marc Jacobs.
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The shop is small, but perfectly formed, with a select edit of APC’s wider range.
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This erotic emporium is London's most glamorous introduction to kink.
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This store stocks gorgeous groceries dressed as ghoulish gifts, with all profits going to sister charity The Ministry of Stories.
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A trove of industrial bric-a-brac foraged from old hospitals, car-boot sales, schools and factories.
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Head here for clothing, jewellery, accessories and stationery all featuring bright graphic illustrations.
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Simple packaging – and natural-inspired products – have made Aesop an expert in the skincare world.
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The Shoreditch boutique of guitarist-turned-TV-presenting-pug-toting Brix Smith-Start.
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Explore cult brand Supreme at the London outpost of New York's legendary skate shop.
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Tucked away above a sex shop on Charing Cross Road is this shrine to fashion and photography books.
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Great for cards, arty scarves, contemporary jewellery and quirky decorative items.
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Functional homewares make for beautiful gifts at this Redchurch Street store.
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This is a favourite of Kate and Sienna types, who head here in search of vintage and offbeat finds.
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This chic lifestyle boutique occupies an airy art deco garage on the King's Road.
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This Swedish, art-edged denim and fashion label is, unofficially, the world’s hippest brand.
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Fortnum has a rich history, a stately home-quality shop fit, and more than its fair share of British quirk.
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This indie food store is the antidote to bland, mega-chain supermarkets.
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For the ultimate fashion fix look no further than Joan Burstein's venerable store.
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Find a worthy clutch of unique brands over its eight floors of beauty, fashion, food and homewares.
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This cutting-edge store and cafe is in the Shoreditch hipster heartland, furnishing locals with fashion, homeware, gifts and coffee.
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This ‘boutique fantastique’ is packed to the rafters with luggage, watches and must-have bags.
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This well-loved indie – one of Europe’s largest bookshops – has seen off intense competition in recent years.
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An interiors and accessories store. Each piece begs the question, 'Do I wear it or hang it on the wall?'
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A colossal vintage emporium off Brick Lane.
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More Kate Moss than Kate Mid, Village Bicycle has plenty to delight.
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Slick menswear store for the Shoreditch gent.
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London's glitziest department store.
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Tremendous for teens, thanks to its lightning-fast transfer of styles from catwalk to the rails of its mighty flagship.
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Championing the avant-garde, b Store isn’t shy of stocking the weird alongside the wonderful.
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Beyond Retro has been dressing the capital in secondhand fashions for nearly a decade.
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This Hoxton boutique offers an unfailingly cool edit of clothes, accessories, homeware and art.
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Wolf & Badger genuinely nurtures new fashion designers, who rent small units within the boutique.
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The best place in the capital to stock up on sounds – from vinyl and CDs to live performances.
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A Dalston basement that stocks a mix of truly avant-garde fashion, rare books and music.
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Now well past its centenary, Selfridges manages to be both stately and contemporary at the same time.
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This multi-brand, multi-floored fashion house is the baby of Comme des Garcons visionary Rei Kawakubo.
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This year's winner is the creakiest, wonkiest and most beloved emporium in London.
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I don't really understand how any properly thought through list of the best shops in somewhere as diverse as London can end up with 9 clothes (or strongly clothes focused) shops in the Top 10. How depressingly blinkered...
LN-CC is fantastic, an out of this world shopping experience!! A must see!!
LN-CC is wonderful, can't understand how Selfridges ranked so highly? Liberty is also great. Good list all in all.
Thanks for this list--a very interesting composition of shops across London.
I would like to offer my personal favourite--which didn't make your list-maybe because it is new or maybe because ethical fashion is still emerging properly in the London arena, it is:
Danaqa World Chic
282 Westbourne Park Road, W11 1EH
www.danaqa.com
...for wonderful luxury, ethical personal and household accessories.
beautifully made items from unusual places, with great 'feel-good' stories!
TFC in Dalston rules, I love the European supermarket smell - It's like being on holiday.
It's a shame Beach London didn't make it in, on Cheshire Street.
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