Shopping with a pre-teen in central/west London

[CardiCorgi]

DD and I have a bit of shopping/sightseeing time before she goes on a summer course near London. We’re planning on going to the V&A but other than that we have some free time. She needs black shoes (flat Mary-Jane or ballerina style with straps to keep them on) and would like to try before buying. Other than that she’s been complaining that none of her long trousers fit. Any idea of where we should look, we don’t live in the UK, so I’m no longer familiar with all of the high street brands? One of the big shopping centres? She’s at the slightly awkward stage of being too tall for a lot of children’s clothing, but too narrow for adult ranges.
We are also going through Reading, if that would be a better shopping option.

Westfield Shepherds Bush has lots of options for tweenagers/teenagers.

You can get the Elizabeth Line from Reading to Bond Street tube and will come out onto Oxford Street and all the shops.

Your daughter would love:

Pull and Bear
Stradivarius
H and M (less trendy but popular)
Brandy Melville

For school shoes you can’t beat StartRite.

happy shopping!

Agree… get off at Sherpherds Bush and it’s all pedestrianised right into the shopping centre

Also in Westfield, all the tween/teen shops are in the same area.

Thanks so much for the advice. Westfield it is then, plus we can go to Boots and stock up on curly hair products. That works out really well transport-wise too.

@Rainydayinlondon (great name by the way), she doesn’t know any of those brands apart from the ubiquitous H&M so we will have a look on their websites and see if the styles appeal.

Add
Subdued (£££)
Hollister (££)
Urban Outfitters (££)
Berksha
to the list too.
And Primark! Their 2XS clothes were the only things which fitted tween DD for a while. And New Look actually. They do a range imaginatively called 915 just for this age group.

To be honest, Primark is VERY popular amongst tweens and you’ll save lots of money!

And despite my name, I hope the sun shines for you!

That all sounds great (apart from Bershka, we have it here in Germany and it belongs to one of the modern circles of hell, never again). She also wants to go to M&S.

Thank you so much for the advice. We went to Westfield and ticked off all of the „really need it“ items from our list. Dd was delighted to find a shoe shop named „Schuh“.

How tall is your tween? For Pull and Bear, Stradivarius, and Brandy Melville she needs to be at least 5.2 or taller. I recommend Zara, H&M, the XXS size do occasionally fit or their 10-14 range. I recommend Covent Garden for the shoe shops and Glossier. Thee is also a small UO.

She’s already about 5’5”, hence the problems as she’s still child/tween shaped.

My teen loves carnaby street, which is close to Oxford street for other shops.

Maybe you can look at Mango Teen - there was one on Westfield however they do a great range online and come up long too! So would suit your DD.

I went to Westfield a few days ago with my younger DD, we purchased from Mango Teen and Hollister as well as Sephora and Kiko for make up! Nothing beats a mother and daughter trip ❤️