Fabric Town Nippori

I spent a fun afternoon in the Fabric Town area of Tokyo looking at fabric and just about everything related to sewing. I took the West Exit of the Nippori Station on the Yamanote Line and in a few minutes was walking along Nippori Chuo Dori aka Fabric Town's Main Street.


I spotted the colorful green banners with Fabric Town/Fabric Street written in English and knew I was going the the right direction. With my years of quilting, sewing and textile design I immediately felt "at home" in this shopping area and had no problems with my very very very limited Japanese in purchasing goods in the amounts I wanted.


The famous fabric store Tomato with its six floors of fabric was the highlight of my afternoon. Each floor had different fabrics plus accompanying music. Classical music was played on the floor with conservative suit weight fabrics, jazz played on the floor with colorful Japanese cotton fabrics and loud rock and roll blared forth on the floor with wild trendy fabrics.


Bins and displays of fabrics, patterns etc were in front of the shops. As seen in the above photo men, women, young, older shop here.


The colorful fabric with Japanese designs and patterns were my favorite. With so much to select from it was hard to choose what to buy. Everything!


So many notions and sewing related items. The woman on the left seems to share my reaction: So much to see, so overwhelming.


Pretty flowers in boxes line parts of the street. Big bicycle baskets are so practical. I wonder how much fabric and trim and thread and notions and patterns fit in this basket.