I used to be a label snob, and Chapel Street was my favourite shopping destination in the world.
Then I had two children, and it became all about the sales.
That dress cost $5 on a discount table at Jay Jay’s. The leggings were on sale too, making the whole outfit ten dollars.
Here is the thing, and it is the reason this post exists: if that dress had carried a good label and hung in a boutique in an affluent postcode, it would have been at least a hundred dollars, and people would have paid it. The fit is lovely and the fabric is better than it has any right to be.
So I want to give you Chapel Street two ways. What is actually there, precinct by precinct, and how to walk into a beautiful boutique without letting the room do your thinking for you.
What Chapel Street actually is
Four kilometres, running from South Yarra at the top through Prahran and down to Windsor. Around 1,600 businesses packed into heritage shopfronts, and it is still the best fashion walk in Melbourne.
It is also not what it was, and I would rather tell you that than have you drive in expecting 1998.
First, the honest state of it
Chapel Street has recovered, and properly. It sat above twenty per cent vacancy during the pandemic and Fitzroys’ Walk The Strip research has it back down near seven per cent, a long-term low. Empty windows are no longer the story.
But much of what came back is food and drink. Cafes, bars and restaurants took up a lot of the space that fashion left, which means fewer clothes per block than the strip’s reputation implies. That is not a complaint. It makes for a much better afternoon. It does mean you should plan a walk rather than expecting to be swallowed by shops the whole way.
And the Jam Factory has closed. The South Yarra complex is shut for a large redevelopment, so if your Chapel Street plan was built around it, build a different one. It is the biggest single change to the strip in years.
South Yarra: the label end
The top of Chapel Street, running down from Toorak Road, is the expensive end and the one people picture when they say Chapel Street.
What it is good for: designer, the international names, and the shops that are genuinely beautiful to be in.
What to watch: this is the stretch where I did my label-snob shopping, and it is very good at making you feel that the price is the point. The garment is the point. A beautifully lit room does not improve a bad neckline.
Prahran: the middle, and the best of it
If you have one afternoon and you want clothes rather than a nice time, this is where to spend it.
Greville Street runs one block west off Chapel and is the indie heart of the whole precinct. Vintage clothing, small boutiques, local designers, and record shops including Greville Records, which has been trading since 1979.
Those booties were $3 and the skirt was another three, brand new with the tag still on. That is not a Greville Street price, it is an op shop price, but it is the look Greville Street sells, and it is worth knowing what the look costs at both ends before you commit.
Chapel Street Bazaar, at 217 Chapel Street, is the other one to know. An enormous second-hand, antique and retro emporium, and one of the longest running in Melbourne. Give it an hour rather than ten minutes, because the good things are not at the front.
Prahran Market has been going since 1864 and runs Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from seven in the morning. Closed Monday and Wednesday, which catches people out.
Windsor: the southern end
The bottom of the strip is the least polished, which is exactly why I like it.
More independents, fewer chains, and a lot of the hospitality that has driven the recovery. It is the stretch where a small shop can still afford to be odd, and odd is where the interesting clothes are.
Start here and walk north. You get the interesting end while you are fresh, and by the time you reach South Yarra you have seen enough to know whether the expensive version is genuinely better.
How to shop a boutique without losing your head
This is the part a guide to the street will not give you, and it is most of what clients are actually paying me for when we walk it together.
A small shop is a persuasion machine, and a good one. One or two people, giving you their whole attention, in a beautiful room. That is a lovely experience and it is also why people come home with a dress they will not wear.
Say what you are after, out loud, at the door. “I am looking for a jacket to wear over dresses, in navy or camel, under $300.” A good boutique owner will now do half your work for you and will tell you honestly if they have nothing. A poor one will start pulling things anyway, which tells you something too.
Use the owner properly. These are the people who know their stock, their sizing quirks and which labels run small. That knowledge is free and almost nobody asks for it.
Try the thing on and then walk out of the shop. Not with it. Just leave, get a coffee, and see whether you are still thinking about it in twenty minutes. Nothing on Chapel Street is so rare it will be gone, and the ones that survive the coffee are the ones you wear.
Never buy because the room was beautiful. I have done it. The room does not come home with you.
That dress was a vintage find for under $10 and I have worn it to more parties than anything I have paid properly for. Nobody at any of them asked where it came from.
Working out what a thing is actually worth
The $5 dress at the top of this post is the whole lesson, so let me finish the thought.
Price on Chapel Street tells you about the shop, not always about the garment. Rent on that strip is high and it has to come from somewhere. Sometimes the price reflects a genuinely better make: better fabric, a proper lining, seams that will hold. Often it reflects the address.
So judge the garment in your hands. Turn it inside out. Look at the seam allowance, whether the pattern matches across the seams, whether the lining is a real lining or a scrap. Then decide what it is worth to you, and let the shop’s postcode be somebody else’s problem.
That whole outfit, dress and shoes, was $10. I am not telling you to never spend money on Chapel Street. I am telling you that once something fits properly and is well made, nobody can tell what it cost, which is the argument I make at length in how to look expensive on a budget.
What Chapel Street is genuinely best at
Every shopping precinct in Melbourne has a thing it does better than the others, and it is worth going for that rather than treating the strip as a general-purpose department store.
The one distinctive piece. Whatever makes an outfit yours rather than everybody’s. A jacket with an unusual cut, a print nobody else is wearing, a dress that did not come off a national buying plan. This is the whole reason to walk a strip instead of driving to a centre, and it is the one category where I would tell you to pay retail without flinching.
Vintage and second-hand with an eye already applied. Op shops are cheaper, but you do the sorting. Greville Street and Chapel Street Bazaar have done the sorting for you, and the premium you pay is for somebody else’s taste and hours. On a week when you have neither, that is a fair trade.
Shoes and bags from independents. Small shops carry brands the centres do not, and the owner will remember your size and call you.
And a genuinely good afternoon. I am not being sentimental. The strip has more places to sit down than it used to, and shopping badly is almost always a symptom of being tired, hungry and rushed.
What I would not buy there
Basics. A plain tee on Chapel Street costs what a plain tee costs anywhere plus the rent. Buy those from the chains, which is the split I set out in where to shop for clothes in Melbourne.
Anything you are buying to keep up. The strip has always had a slight competitive edge to it, and it is very easy to buy something because of the room you are standing in and the people walking past the window. That is how I shopped it in my twenties and it is the single most expensive way to do it.
Anything you have not sat down in. The change rooms are small and the mirrors are flattering. Sit down, reach up, and walk a few steps before you decide.
How I would spend an afternoon there
Start at the Windsor end around eleven, when the independents have opened.
Walk north up the Chapel Street side, into Prahran. Give Chapel Street Bazaar a proper hour.
Turn into Greville Street and do the block. If it is a Saturday, do this before two, because between two and five it is shoulder to shoulder.
Lunch at Prahran Market if it is a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday.
Finish in South Yarra with a clear head and a short list, and only buy at that end if the thing is genuinely better than what you already saw.
Take the tram, not the car. Parking on Chapel Street is a sport and you will make worse decisions when you are watching a meter.
The short version
- Four kilometres, three precincts, roughly 1,600 businesses.
- It has recovered to near seven per cent vacancy, but a lot of the new tenancy is hospitality rather than fashion.
- The Jam Factory is closed for redevelopment. Do not plan around it.
- South Yarra is the label end, Prahran the best for clothes, Windsor the most interesting.
- Greville Street for vintage and indie. Chapel Street Bazaar at 217 Chapel Street for everything else second-hand.
- Prahran Market runs Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, closed Monday and Wednesday.
- Say what you want at the door, and walk out before you buy.
Small rooms and attentive owners are wonderful and they are also extremely good at selling, which is why this is one of the routes where a second opinion earns its keep fastest. Somebody outside the change room with no stake in the sale changes what you come home with. That is a Half Day of personal shopping in Melbourne at $399, or $649 for the full day. Work out the list first, though, with a personal stylist in Melbourne at $299 for two hours.
And if you are still building your picture of the city, Chapel Street is only one layer of it. The rest is in where to shop for clothes in Melbourne, alongside the op shops and the outlets.
Now go and start at the Windsor end.
And now you’re Looking Good Girls.
“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” Philippians 4:11.