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Europe > Netherlands > Amsterdam > Amsterdam > Articles > Shopping in Amsterdam

Shopping in Amsterdam

by Jasper Winn

Department stores and commercial chains hardly hold the Netherlands in thrall; you don’t find many Netherlanders clamouring to spend their Saturday mornings trolley-piloting…

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The Dutch like shopping for Dutch reasons - it’s a space-efficient way of keeping people amused, there are bargains to be had and it’s a statement of individualism. That’s the key, individualism. Department stores and commercial chains hardly hold the Netherlands in thrall; you don’t find many Netherlanders clamouring to spend their Saturday mornings trolley-piloting the ubiquitously cheap and vast Hema emporiums. Instead Amsterdam’s real trading ethos is based on quirky little enterprises filling vendor niches one wouldn’t have imagined existed. This is wonderful for visitors.

However obscure your passion, your weakness or your obsession, somewhere in Amsterdam there is a small shop selling just what you want. And very little else. Like birds in some overcrowded ecological habitat, A’dam’s shops follow Darwinian principals, depending on their outlandish specialisation for survival. And, naturally, there are plenty of outlets trading the icons of Amsterdam culture - tulip bulbs, clogs, cheeses, Delftware, legal highs and fun sex.

So, for example, if you’re a sado-masochist with a penchant for pervy clothes, glitter and tying things up in small packages, then Amsterdam’s got just the store to burn up your credit card. Because Christmas World (Damrak 33) is open year round and sells nothing but Xmas tat. And, if stick-on-beards aren’t exactly what you’re looking for, then Absolute Danny, (Oudezijds Achterburrgwal 78) have ‘classy’ - according to Playboy - erotic and fetish clothing.

Equally focused, Waterwinkel - the ‘water shop’ (Roleof Hartsraat 10) - sells only bottled water, flogging some 200 worldwide varieties, and for all i know hosting riotous tasting evenings as well. Condomerie Het Gulden Vlies translates as the ‘golden fleece condom shop,’ and though I’m sure there’s a joke in the name somewhere I’m darned if I can see it. But then the humour might lie in paying a visit to see just what colours, shapes, and textures of rubber people are prepared to pull on in the interests of spicing up their safe-sex lives. Or is it more amusing to contemplate what people are prepared to put in their mouths; De Witte Tandenwinkel (Runstraat 5) is an absolute must for champagne flavoured toothpaste and other dental requisites. And has either of these shops solved your dilemma over what to buy the folks back home?

No? You want something even more typically Dutch? Or they’re just more demanding back at the ranch. Diamonds can be considerably (like, very considerably!), cheaper in Amsterdam than in other cities. There has been a gem cutting and polishing industry here for 500 years, which allied with the Netherlands’ past connections with South Africa, helps cut out a few fat-cat middlemen. Coster Diamonds - they cut the ‘Koh-I-Noor’ - on Paulus Potterstraat do speedy tours of their workrooms after which you can get extravagant in their very pleasant café, or look-to-buy in one of the salerooms.

Something more Dutch still? Amsterdam’s drugstores are quite literally ‘drug stores,’ inhabiting some strange legal limbo where creative use of the trades descriptions acts allied to liberalism and commercial interests allows for the sale of interesting herbal, mycological and chemical preparations that, (as the counter-staff should really, and probably do, point out to customers), can lead to heavy fines and/or a spell in prison if exported to less enlightened countries. And to very much worse if your next stop is Singapore. The Magic Mushroom on Spui is fascinating for a bit of vicarious window-shopping, and just goes to prove that some of us didn’t pay as much attention as we might have done in our chemistry and botany classes.

You might imagine that nobody comes to Amsterdam and actually buys a pair of clogs, but the number of klompschoen shops argues otherwise. The most interesting (well, you take your jollies where you find them, no?) is De Klompenboer (Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal 20). Little elves toil out the back turning trees into shoes, and chickens peck around in the shop. Rustically atmospheric or what? Equally, you could just buy a second-hand pair of clogs. Nobody’ll notice the difference, if you wrap them nicely.

In fact you can buy just about anything second hand in Amsterdam. The Dutch mania for recycling gives them some of the best flea, junk and antique markets in Europe. The Waterlooplein market is open Monday to Saturday and can turn up real bargains - if what you want most in life is an extra large policeman’s uniform, an ostrich feather duster or a box of assorted pre-war Mercedes bonnet badges. Though plenty of antiques start their life in the Waterlooplein, the best tend to be picked up by dealers who take them up in the world and in price for resale in De Looier Indoor Antiques Market off Elandsgracht (Mondays to Thursdays, and Saturdays), making it well worth a visit. Dutch stallholders are friendly, too, with cheerful amateurs out-numbering the moon-booted, glum faced professionals familiar from other nations’ markets.

Most Amsterdam shops bar their doors through Sundays, and usually for Monday mornings as well. And that’s as much for necessities-of-life outlets as those places specializing in tie-dyed Brazilian muesli bongs or left-threaded-pre-metric-enameled-wing-nuts. Forget to lay in a stock of bottled water, toothpaste, Christmas decorations or even milk and you’re staring deprivation in the face. So, Heufts First Class Night Shop (Rijnstraat 62, and more importantly on telephone number 642 4048) can be a lifeline, if a somewhat expensive way of keeping body and soul together. They’ll deliver wine and a dozen oysters, or you can drop in for a pack of cigarettes and a couple of bananas. But it’s not really shopping. Still, Amsterdamers need their Sunday’s free to work on their role as the world’s most niche orientated customers and to plan their coming week’s assault on micro-consumerism.