A peek inside the new River Island store in Canal Walk

Ah, good ole River Island. I was a big fan back in the day when I used to live in London, doing a gap year between high school and advertising college. While I was always too broke to buy much, I’d lurk around the store on Oxford street, lovingly stroking all the shoes and bags I really, really wanted but could only afford if I sold off my blood. (And I mean that literally. I remember it being around thirty eight pounds for a pint!)

Anyway, fast forward fourteen years and I now get to indulge all my latent River Island fantasies sans needles and anaemia-induced black outs as they’ve finally opened their first Cape Town store in Canal Walk. (Jozi’s had one in Rosebank Mall for a while now.) I nipped into the launch last week to discover a pop-up mani bar and flower crown-making station as well as a big discount wheel of fortune that I totally forgot to spin.

It’s a good thing I didn’t buy anything though as I’m saving all my cash to blow in Bangkok at the end of this month. Still, it was hard to snap up these boys in particular.

Pretty, pretty! — If I remember correctly, the bag was around R800, the watch R700 and the wallet about R350.

Price-wise, River Island still isn’t cheap but many of their things are mooi enough to justify the splurge. I also like the fact that much of what you see on the shelves in SA are the same as what you’d spot in store right now in the UK. We’re definitely not a season behind as per with Forever 21 which is a real fashion tragedy, really.