This time next month, my friends and I will be headed to Cologne (Köln), Germany for the carnival celebration and we’ve been searching London’s vintage shops for awesome costume accessories. This weekend’s search took me to the Blitz Vintage Department Store on the city’s East End.
Describing itself as a “the ultimate shopping experience”, Blitz is a huge five room Victorian warehouse (9,000 sq. ft.) transformed into a vintage department store. And true to its claim, the store features a great collection of late seventies to nineties era items – sportswear, denim jackets, and women’s scarves – and all of the departments you’d expect a department store to have – men’s, women’s, furniture, a café, and a few odds and ends throughout.
Unlike other vintage stores, everything at Blitz is incredibly organized and superbly presented. Additionally, all of the merchandise – including items from the thirties and forties – is of incredibly high quality and most of it looks almost new! If you spend some time playing around on their blog, you’ll learn about the care put into selecting items and prepping them for the shelves.
An old school Chicago Bulls hat WITH the official NBA licensed product tag.
The only section in the store featuring new items is the books section. But even there the titles are classic novels by folks like Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut.
A quick glance at their impressive Swatch collection.
A lamp that’s reminiscent of ‘The Brave Little Toaster’.
In the furniture section, everything is for sale. (Source)
Even the staircase to the clothing department is decorated with items for sale. (Source)
In the men’s section, the only disheveled looking area was the bedroom table over flowing with bowties… but that’s actually pretty cool.
A vintage ‘Dream Team’ jersey – Alonzo Mourning – from the nineties.
London’s trendy East End couldn’t be a more perfect location for the store with the eclectic Brick Lane and hipster watering holes just around the corner. After spending last weekend at the vintage stores in Camden Market, I’m really glad I went to Blitz. The store is proof that a vintage store doesn’t need to smell like someone’s attic.
For more info on London’s vintage scene, check out The Vintage Guide to London.
Blitz Vintage Department Store
55-59 Hanbury Street
London E1 5JP
Tel: 020 7377 0730
Nearest Tube: Liverpool Street, Aldgate East (Google Map)
Mon – Wed: 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Thu – Sat: 11:00 am – 8:00 pm
Sun: 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
