Yo guys and gals, I got a buddy that will be in London for the next 6 months and he was wondering what the must see toy shops in London? I'm not familiar with the area so any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
hamleys on regent street but seriously,,,there are none for kaiju-related items.... for western style,,,playlounge on beak street,,,forbidden planet on shaftesbury avenue,,,and dmph on great pulteney street (there are all in the same relative area) i shop vicariously through the internet...an s7 london branch would be a great idea for the 4 or 5 of us who buy kaiju in this vast city (but most likely a really silly idea for the investor)
there's orbital as well, not entirely sure where it is though, just off oxford street i think (again same region) as the others mentioned also they walk among us in richmond, which is a fair way out but you can get there by train or tube. richmond is pretty nice yep s7 london style, have to be somewhere with cheap rent (does a place like that exist here?)
in case u dont know this site, fxxking helpful when u go to any other town & permanently updated too! http://superfuture.com/city/city/city.cfm?city=6
when i went to london i hit up playlounge and dphmi. the latter was alot better. i was totally broke though and could only afford a few 100% bearbricks. i'm pretty sure playlounge had no kaiju stuff and dphmi only had a very small amount. both rwesome stores though.
neither has kaiju as far as i know. dpmhi has shit toys for sale but a lot of nice kaws stuff in the display section. oh they have a few of those futura toys but man they're (a) ugly (b) expensive
and the kids that work in there are so Nathan Barley it hurts....what a bunch of w*nkers! too school for cool!!
i remember when i was paying for my stuff i said 'this is awesome, we don't have any stores like this in australia' or something and he paused and said '...what's new york like?'. pretty funny but he was actually helpful when i asked for directions to somewhere else.
I tried to source Kaiju for my store B2 on Brick Lane but no one was particularly forthcoming in supplying the stuff to me. So don't blame the retailers... we can only try, blame the people who make this stuff and hoard it for themselves in an evil hoarding style of menace and terror!
I was told by the guys at Orbital that they weren't interested in getting any in because there was no one in the UK who collected kaiju... which was blatantly wrong as I was stood in the shop asking for it... That aside, I don't know if I would commit to buying anything brought in only because I am sure the prices would be double what they would be normally like most things. Though I would do what I could to support any and all efforts. I just have the idea in my head that what S7 sells for $90 wouldn;t be £45, but would more than likely be £85-90. But then I'm a pessimist.
Not necessarily. Buying from the US for retail in the UK has its benefits because of the dollar : pound exchange rate is in our favour. I don't know about S7 distribution prices, usually I would expect to buy a figure with an SRP of $90 (£45) for around $45 - $50 (£22 - £25). Final pricing would also depend on shipping and import costs which are the major problem* for small retailers in the UK, but I expect I could retail at around £50. I will look into S7 distribution again! We had the Tokyo Underground book in and it flew out, so I know there is an S7 fan base. My space is built to be a kaiju store, it is hidden in a shop basement and only open on special occasions... we keep the underground under ground and hard to find! Plus we have a sushi cafe above us. *we pay extra duty and VAT to import into the country. the main reason why sub-culture product is so hard to come by, we just can't afford to buy in for business.
Re: Wagamama is in MA and CA now too...I think DC soon. And you're right, it is overpriced but I think the food is decent.
