The first time I heard a style-conscious shopper mention that she always went to the Dover Street Market, I just couldn’t figure out how I could have overlooked a whole market right in the most fashionable shopping area. I searched in vain for it too, until I realized that it is a six-story shopping mall organized as an indoor market.
In 2004, Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo created this raw and industrial place, dedicated to sophisticated, crazy, strange and absolutely fabulous design. It’s an almost bizarre experience to walk up the concrete stairs and open the door to the ”stands”.
The shop assistants walk around and look like installations or they sit in small huts located on every floor, where you can revel in new and different clothes from Raf Simons, Hede Slimane, Judy Blame and Alber Elbaz, Comme des Garcons, Lanvin and Dior and many more.
Dover Street Market, 17-18 Dover Street, W1S 4LT. Tube: Green Park.
By Karin Graabaek, extract from her travel guide LONDON my love!, published by Gyldendal.