The Brick Lane Vintage Market — Local services in London

This place is basically the definition of a tourist scam center. The clothes you will find inside the stores are more than overpriced. £160 for a carhart jacket that is already second hand is ridiculous. They also do this trick where they advertise clothes as reworked but in my opinion the only thing that remains carhart is the logo. You can tell this by the bad tailoring of clothes. £25 for a band t-shirt that is also used is again ridiculous as that's how much you pay if you buy it from the band directly and you actually support the band. It's a scam, a very hipsterish place where you will overpay for every single item.

When it comes to food market, although the food is great there are no seats anywhere and you are forced to eat on the street as the place is packed. Big no no for me.

I live in London for about 8 years and I've been to enough similar markets to have a strong opinion about them. This one is on the bottom of my list. The local markets outside the center area are the ones you are looking for. This one is only good if you care about your Instagram profile as the amount of influencers per square meter is significant. I don't have an Instagram account which is why I strongly feel its 100%...

Reliable place for vintage & DIY makers. Yes it's usually pretty spendy but if you're looking for a certain piece then you'll likely be guaranteed to find it here & it'll save you trekking across town or scrolling through Etsy for hours if you're happy to spend the prices. The prices are pretty consistent with what you'd pay in most nice/modern vintage shops anyway.

Plenty of selection from early 20th century vintage to modern/small scale/DIY designers. Mostly it's what's trending at the time so lots of recent 'vintage' (90s/00s) but still more beyond that. Plenty of traders & they've recently expanded it even bigger.

Traders operate in the hours they like so if you come towards the end of the day some might have gone home before the market actually closes. Would recommend not leaving it too late in the day to visit if you want to see absolutely everything.

I've been going for years. Sometimes I'll leave with nothing but when I do buy something it's a good thing. We all love to hate but we...

This is a vintage market I’ve visited occasionally for the past twenty years. When I was younger, I used to come here to enjoy stylish clothes with a youthful sense of fashion. But as I’ve grown older and started a family, I tended to buy brand-new items rather than vintage, so I didn’t feel the need to come here. Visiting New York and Paris recently reminded me of the unique charm of vintage, so I decided to return.

However, to my eyes, there are more items displayed just to fill the space than truly useful or valuable pieces, which makes treasure-hunting very difficult. The smell of old clothes and the stale air was quite exhausting.

If you’re planning to spend a long time searching for treasures, it’s a good idea to wear a mask and step outside now and then to...