Fabric Shopping in Hong Kong

In 2016 I was lucky enough to go to Hong Kong for a work project, after the conference I tacked on a few days holiday. While I was there I couldn't pass up a trip to the Garment District - Sham Shai Po. It's really easy to get to - about half a dozen stops on the MTR red line from Central.

Take exit A2 then walk a couple of blocks until you get to Ki Lung Street. When I went on a Friday morning there was a small market between the MTR exit and Ki Lung Street.

Ki Lung Street is the street with fabric shops and fabric stalls. I only walked down a couple of blocks which was enough to fill my bag. Also along Ki Lung Street there are shops selling leather and on other streets you can find shops selling ribbons, beads buttons or anything else you might need to make garments!

A picture of a sign in a street in Hong Kong, the top of the sign is in Chinese characters, underneath in English is written - Textile Co. Ltd
A picture of a fabric shop in hong kong. There are lots of bolts of fabric standing upright. Above the fabric are signs saying 10 HKD per yard
A picture of the inside of a bead shop in Hong Kong. On the left of the picture is a wall full of small clear drawer units - you can see all the different colour beads. On the right are some large jars full of colourful beads
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This wonderful blog covers everything you need to know about the garment district, how to find it and what is on offer.

At the time I visited the exchange rate was about £1 = HK$10.5
This is my haul - going clockwise from top left:

  • Black chinese style floral fabric good quality cotton HK$50 per yard

  • Black floral cotton lawn HK$40 per yard

  • Safari print canvas (since when have kangaroos been safari animals?) HK$25 off cut

  • Chinese style fabric in blue and red/black HK$35 per yard

  • Blue / purple repeating horizontal panels HK$5 (YES 50p!) per yard

  • Blue floral fabric draped cotton/polyester mix HK$40 per yard

A picture of 7 different fabrics laid out showing what I bought when shopping in the hong kong fabric district
 

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