Pages

Wednesday 16 November 2016

Fabric shopping in Barcelona, tourist edition


When I was planning our trip to Barcelona I did some research on the whereabouts of the local fabric shops. Don't you agree fabric makes the best holiday souvenir? Much to my surprise it was harder than I expected to locate the shops. Some broken links on Artisan's Square and bloggers mentioning a severe lack of fabric shops in Barcelona didn't bring me any closer. Eventually I found a small lead on the blog of Barcelona based designer Paco Peralta and took it from there. Some google sessions later I had four fabric shops marked on my tourist map. Best news: three of them were on the same street!

This triple fabric shop bingo can be found on Carrer Roger de Lluria, a small street in L'Eixample district, only a few blocks away from Placa de Catalunya. Not hard to find, but also easy to miss if you don't know where to look. We took a detour through the little street when we were walking from Sagrada Familia towards our hotel in the city center. It's rather close to Gaudi's Casa Mila, in case you need to deposit a travel companion at a nearby tourist attraction first ;)


La Casa del Retall - Teixits, 
Carrer Roger de Lluria 9


A small shop, selling lots of knits. A quick scan of the collection showed a lot of fabrics I can easily buy at home. I even discovered the same floral print I was wearing, albeit in a muted olive green colourway. Reasonably priced fabrics for every day wear.


Ribes & Casals
Carrer Roger de Lluria 7



Next door: Ribes & Casals. A very large fabric shop, selling all kinds of fabrics from quilting cotton to silk, lace and suiting. The top picture of this post was also taken here.
While I looked around Mr Foxgloves, who is not a frequent visitor of Dutch fabric shops (to put it mildly) was photographing like crazy. Apparently he's attracted to texture: lace, feathers, faux fur and tweed.










I was tempted by the silk section but most fabrics were either too warm or had too much contrast for my colouring. Ribes & Casals has a large bargain basement which also houses the home decoration and haberdashery department.


Donna Teixits
Carrer Roger de Lluria 6

Across the street is another fabric shop with a deceptively small store front. I found this shop the most interesting one of the three. A section of bridal and evening wear fabrics with beautiful guipure lace, silk dupioni and sequins. The back of the very deep store houses a section of special fabrics for fancy costumes and FC Barcelona home decor fabrics for soccer fans. Only one picture taken at Donna Teixits, as the attention span of my photographer started to fade...


Speaking of fading. As much as I liked the print, you can see why it was a big no as it made me look tired and washed out even during a very relaxed and sunny holiday!

In the end all I bought were some notions, and of course the latest issue of pattern magazine Patrones which can be found in most newsstands, together with the Spanish edition of Burda Style. It's a coat special with coats in the style of Ralph Lauren, Karen Millen, Pepe Jeans and Prada.



The fourth shop on my list was closed when we passed by during a late night walk but if you're interested in Japanese fabrics or organic cotton Nunoya on Carrer de Trafalgar 14 is the place to be!



While this list is by no means a complete overview I hope it can be helpful for future fabric loving Barcelona visitors!


8 comments:

  1. Thanks for the suggestions! I don't have Spain on my list anytime soon. But, I love to see what other countries / cities have to offer in fabric.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I also shopped the fabric stores for a souvenir when I visited Barcelona. I saw much I could buy at home in the US, but I purchased a faux leather in teal and Patrones magazine too. In the end, it was a fun way for my daughter and I to feel like we knew the city a little better. Tammy R.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is how I vacation as well.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Looks like it was a lot of fun in Barcelona. I deliberately didn't look for fabric shops because I knew I would have to carry fabric around in my luggage for another 5 weeks. I can't say no to fabric.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Looks like you had fun exploring Spain's fabric stores!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank you so much for sharing! I will definitely be visiting them when we go to Barcelona soon.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, love the fabric shopping Barcelona. I came across those same shops by accident - wasn't looking to buy fabric - however when you look at the prices and quality, my pledge was forgotten. Between hubs and I, we carried and extra 15kg of fabric for the next 3 weeks of the holiday. But it was so worth it!!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Thank you so much for this very useful information as I also think shopping for fabrics is my favorite attraction when I travel.

    ReplyDelete