MY ULTIMATE LIST FOR VINTAGE SHOPPING IN AMSTERDAM

HELLO EVERYONE!!! Sorry for the wait and I KNOW that this has been one of my most FAQ on Instagram in recent years, but even though I love sharing, it was still a bit of a catch 22 to spill all my secrets. The reason being that I still want to be able to find good stuff whenever I go vintage shopping and I guess if I shout to the world where I buy all the good stuff, then it will be harder to actually find the good stuff (you know what I mean). This is how much I love you guys though, so fine, I’ll share all my secrets because sharing is caring.

I go to different stores for different things and I just want to share for full disclosure that this is a list of the places I GO TO, so I am not saying these are the best vintage stores in Amsterdam. I know that there are a few others which I never go to, just because of the style of things they sell is not my thing. In short, this is a personalised list of sorts, so if your style is similar to mine, then this is your list, but if you are more into 40’s, 50’s vintage, you might have to research a little further.

Lets begin shall we:

EPISODE

Episode is the best unkept secret in Amsterdam, considering it’s the most popular vintage store in the city. It might seem like an obvious choice on my list, but before you jump into conclusions and think: “Groundbreaking Andy, I already knew that store”, bare with me, because I have some insights you might not know about.

First and foremost, episode is not 1 store, they actually have 4 locations in the city and even though it might seem like their selection is quite scattered throughout those locations, my boyfriend and I have learnt otherwise. We have done sufficient research -by going there more often that we should-, to know which locations have the best stuff.

For instance, my boyfriend and I ALWAYS go to their location on the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat since that’s where we have found the BEST blazers. There you go, thats my gold pot of blazers. We have literally found endless amounts of beautiful blazers and we don’t even know where to keep anymore, so we are taking a small break. This location is best for blazers and if you are in the hunt for vintage Burberry trench coats, this is the place. As well as having a very large selection of vintage Levi’s jeans.

I go to their Berenstraat location to look for cool cashmere sweaters or vintage lacoste sweaters. I have also been lucky enough to find really amazing shearling coats and they have a sick selection of vintage hats. Keep an eye on this location for varsity jackets (both my boyfriend and I have a bit of an obsession and most of our  best varsity jackets were purchased here).Apart from all this, they also have a HUGE selection of wool berets, literally every single colour your heart desires.

The other two locations have pretty similar items but I have never found anything groundbreaking, so I always go between the Nieuwe Spiegelstraat and the Berenstaat location.

Just in case, here are all the addresses fro the 4 locations:

 

Berenstraat 1

Spuistraat 96

Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 37H

Waterlooplein 1

KILOPSHOP DE PIJP

I gotta admit that I have a love hate relationship with this store. Hate because their selection is too overwhelming and I’ve hardly ever found anything that I like. HOWEVER, if you have patience and know what to look for, you might find some gems.

For instance; I found an INCREDIBLE black blazer last weekend (you probably saw it on my IG stories). The only problem is, IT STINKS. I didn’t really realised this while I was at the store because I was too excited and because the store also kind of stinks, so the blazer didn’t seem that smelly at first glance. Now, I have embarked on a quest to try find home remedies to get the stink off vintage clothes, but that is another post all together.

This store sell clothes by weight, so everything is tagged with a colour, they have a scale where you weight your garment and it tells you how the price according to the weight. They have a great selection of stereotypical 80’s tracksuit pants and in general, thats pretty much the vibe of their selection. Everything is very 80’s / 90’s. If you have the patience to browse through a lot t-shirts, you might also find pretty cool retro ones.
Like I said, I prefer Episode over this store, BUT its definitely worth checking every now and then. Who knows? You might find your dream blazer, but then have all your dreams crushed when you find out it smells like armpits mixed with cigarettes. I will save that blazer though, I WILL!

They have a couple of locations, but the one I always go to is:

Albert Cuypstraat 100

 

MARBLES VINTAGE

My boyfriend went from not caring about vintage clothing AT ALL, to asking me to help him scout vintage stores more often than I care to admit. One day while we were cycling past this store, he immediately stopped and said; “Vintage store!”. This was the first time I came across this store, even though I have cycled past their other location many times.
The only location I have been to is at Staalstraat and I really liked it. They have a pretty big selection of vintage Levi’s too, but what caught my eye the most was the amount of vintage cowboy boots they had. I had been trying to find a cool pair of OG cowboy boots for almost a year and they had amazing ones, sadly the ones I really wanted were too tight.
While doing some research on addresses for this post, I realised that have a bigger location on the Haarlemmerdijk, so I need to go there with my man next weekend and I will edit this post if I find anything worth mentioning.

Staalstraat 30

Haarlemmerdijk 64

 

So here it is! You have seen me shop vintage compulsively in the past few years and these are all my not so secret spots. I didn’t want to make the list too long because I don’t want to recommend places I don’t shop at, or I have never been to, but If I ever do, I will make sure to edit this post and you can come back and search vintage shops on teh search bar.