So you're in London for the Rubber Ball, or maybe you live here. You want to shop till you drop for some stunning sex-kitten,cyber-god/goddess all out ball-breaking outfit or just want a new pair of earings. BUT where do you go? Well as is our duty we threw ourselves right into the firing line and in this first in a series of probably very irregular articles we cruise a popular London shopping area for you and give you the low-down on what's hot and what's not!

Note: The information given here was correct at the time of writing, January 2000. Details should be checked, to be certain that all shops are still trading. Where we are aware of changes, we have inserted a note into the text.

Introduction

So you're in London for the Rubber Ball, or maybe you live here. You want to shop till you drop for some stunning sex-kitten,cyber-god/goddess all out ball-breaking outfit or just want a new pair of earings. BUT where do you go? Well as is our duty we threw ourselves right into the firing line and in this first in a series of probably very irregular articles we cruise a popular London shopping area for you and give you the low-down on what's hot and what's not!

Why Camden?

In the not too distant past there was a place called Kensington Market. A lot of it was crap but there were a few little shops where you could buy very cool clothes from. Sadly it closed down this year because the corporate big money spenders wanted to build offices over it.

With the closure of Kensington Market, a strange thing happened. Many of the shops that had their home there moved to Camden, which already had a very upbeat independant feel to it. Also a lot of new retailers of outrageous clothing were encouraged to move in by the market owners. This has resulted in a mass of shops suitable for the fetish scene appearing in one place over the last year or so.

Here at LondonFetishScene we decided that this was just too good an opportunity to miss, so we whipped out the gold cards and expense accounts for some serious investigative journalism.

Getting to Camden

Obviously if you live in London you need no explanation as to how to get to Camden. However visitors might need a few hints.

Camden Town tube station is probably the best station to use to get to Camden, but if you're feeling brave Chalk Farm is also near. They are both on the Northern Line and so well served by a lot of trains. Camden Town will put you out on to Camden High Street. If you can’t actually see a huge mass of people and a plethora of market stalls it’s either 4AM, a weekday, or you need to ask for some more directions.

As I have just alluded to, weekdays are much quieter than weekends, however most of the shops we report on are open all week.

There are a number of pubs around Camden Town tube to meet people in. There also always seems to be a crowd of people outside the station waiting to meet their friends.

The Shops

Most of the shop people were very friendly, even though the LondonFetishCrew were mob handed and cluttering up the shops without buying much. There are a multitude of cafes, food stalls and clothing shops, too many to list, we will present a few highlighted goodies though.

We started at Camden Town tube station and headed north.