Where to Buy Sewing Supplies in Shanghai: Online!
This post has been writing itself since I arrived over a year ago, and I bet it'll continue to grow! Firstly, it was hard to find sewing supplies when I first got to China, mostly because the brand name sewing stores (in Australia it's the Spotlight and Lincraft usually are the go to places if you're new to town etc) just don't exist in Shanghai. Home sewing isn't a thing yet, and as you can imagine with the cultural revolution, a city like Shanghai has so many new 'western world luxuries' (IKEA is very popular here) but not the DIY culture yet. So where do you buy sewing supplies in China? Online of course: TAOBAO! The joke here is when asking friends where you buy stuff, any stuff, the answer is always Taobao or IKEA (and there's certainly some sewing stuff and fabric there too), so for this post, I thought I'd gather up all the Taobao shops I've used, with reasonable quality. My sewing school has also recommended some good Taobao shops, so...