Name: Mieke

Age: 31

Occupation: Head of social media and community management

Hometown: I’m kind of from all over the place

Current location: Leiden, the Netherlands

Angelique Sailor’s Sweetheart by Angelique Houtkamp

Best shop in Amsterdam?

I’ve been back in Holland for three years now and don’t have a favourite shop as of yet. However… (and this isn’t exactly a shop) one place I can recommend is the lappenmarkt on the Noordermarkt on Mondays. Literally translated it’s called the ‘rags market’, but on Monday’s stalls are selling everything from second hand clothing, to fabrics, second hand furniture and curiosities. There are some great vintage interior shops just around the corner as well.

So what’s your favourite find?

My favourite find didn’t come from Amsterdam, it came from Brussels. I was there for a long weekend a few years ago and, because we had a dress up party the following week, we visited a fancy dress shop where I found a very old beaten up M16 cap gun. My friend bought it for me as a 30th birthday gift. It’s beat up and quirky and I love it. My other favourite find is my stuffed Jackalope, which I found in San Francisco at Paxton Gate. Again, surreal, quirky (and I had a hilarious exchange with the Transport Authority about whether it was allowed as carry-on or not, in case you‘re wondering: it‘s not) and I absolutely adore it. We named him Handsome Bob, he’s a real looker.

Handsome Bob

Fancy Dress! I love fancy dress… what’s your best outfit?

I think my best outfit was last Halloween. We were going to a party in Paradiso (a big old church that was converted to a concert venue in the late 60s) for my birthday, but I was going through a break up so I wasn’t really in the mood to find a costume. Since we’d already gotten the tickets I decided to re-use the sailor girl costume I’d gotten the year before and dress up as one of Angelique’s paintings. It worked out really well, even if no one knew who I was supposed to be.

Can you name your best store for new and old goods?

A great area to shop for both new and old goods are the so called ‘9 Straatjes‘. There are a couple of really good vintage clothing shops in the area, as well as a bunch of new design, fashion and interior shops. The area is also littered with bars so it’s a great place to browse around for an afternoon.

Mieke’s Wall by Mieke

Any hidden or new shops/boutiques in Amsterdam that you don’t mind revealing?

My tattoo artist, Angelique Houtkamp, actually just opened her parlour “Salon Serpent” a few months ago. She was looking for a space both for meeting people (she has a big foreign fan base), working on her art, tattooing and selling her prints as well as other knickknacks and decided to roll it all into one. It’s turned out to be a real gem. It has the look and feel of an old barbershop, and then the place is filled with all sorts of cool trinkets, from her painted baby skulls to beautiful prints as well as other things like bottles of ‘girls tears’ and tattoo designs. So it feels like a very fancy curiosity shop, and I love curiosities so if I could move in I would. The ceiling alone is worth a visit.

So after all that shopping & finding treasure… where’s the best place to grab a drink?

I almost don’t want to recommend it for fear of other people going there, but my favorite pub in Amsterdam is the Oranjerie (located at the Oranje Binnenstraat 15hs). Very friendly staff, really good affordable food and tucked away from all the tourists. It’s a proper Dutch pub with a great atmosphere. On one wall they just keep plastering posters for exhibitions and theatre productions on top of each other, I think it must be half a meter thick at the top, it looks lush though it have been done away with during their recent remodeling.

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