London Shop Guide

London is a wonderful place to spend an awful lot of money. London has street markets and shopping malls. It has department stores and boutiques. It has dozens of diverse neighborhoods - each with their own high streets - spanning the spectrum from the incredibly luxe to the decidedly louche. And just when you feel like you can shop no more, London’s labyrinthine geography will entice you around the next corner, where yet another retail gem sits and patiently awaits your discovery. To paraphrase the 18th Century British author Samuel Johnson: when a man is tired of shopping in London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford. Quite literally.

For a first-time visitor, navigating such a vast commercial terrain can be confusing. When to tackle the 548 shops that line central London’s Oxford Street, for example? (Answer: preferably never. Failing that, first thing on a weekday morning). And where to venture after that - East, West, North or South? (Tip: not South). To ease the initiation process, we’ve shortlisted five of the best, independent menswear destinations in the British capital, and asked the owners to fill us in on what makes their respective stores so great.