Shopping at Mao Fang Cheng, or "Wool Spinning City"

After a day and a half of cooler almost autumn-like weather, I started thinking I may finally have to get a casual cool-weather coat or jacket and I found myself clipping along the 5th Ring Road to head north on the Badaling Expressway to MaoFangCheng, also known as "Wool Spinning City" (the characters literally mean "wool", "weaving, or spinning" and "city").

I like this place. According to its occupants, it's been around for more than 10 years. Its clientele is very Chinese; occasionally there's the odd foreigner like me strolling along its halls. So be warned, not a lot of English is spoken here. But the shop people are friendly and helpful, for the most part. The building is a large L-shaped building with four-five stories of little shops catering to selling suit or coat materials (tailoring on the premises optional), or yarns for sweaters (make yourself or order a custom machine-made one), or velvets or silks for traditional Chinese jackets, qipao dresses, etc. Once when I was buying material for a suit for my husband, a tailor, there to buy fabric for HIS shop downtown, asked me in surprise, "You know to buy here??"

For those in Beijing, I share how to get there. For those overseas, enjoy the trip vicariously. And for those who might gripe that I'm disclosing your secret, sorry, but this place could use a little more business. (Caveat: I discovered after about a week that my lovely wool pea coat had VERY loose buttons. I had to replace one button and reinforce the others!! So I suggest that you specifically request/demand that buttons be well sewn. All else, however, was just fine.)

1) From the Badaling Expressway heading north from town, you will get off at Exit 7 (see below).

2) You will have to pay a toll at the booth below. After the toll, stay on the left side of the side road and at the next light, turn left. 3) After turning left (and going under the Badaling Expressway, at the 3rd light on the left you will see the MaoFangCheng or Wool Spinning City building. 4) Parking on the premises is for a small fee. Inside, the halls are simple and lined with small shops, really agents for fabric manufacturers or knitting companies.
5) Inside the yarn shops, you will find both mini-samples and normal size samples of various sweater styles. Want cable knit? Round yoke? Zip front? What kind of yarn -wool? cotton? silk? cashmere? blend? They can measure you and have it made by machine in about 10-14 days' time. Here is one shopkeeper from Room 424 spending her spare time crocheting a narrow "neck wrap" for fancy evenings. Each bead must be painstakingly incorporated into the design from a cache of beads.

6) There are also shops with bolts of wool, cashmere and heavy coat materials. (In Spring they adjust and sell linen and cottons as well.) These shops also have samples as well as the orders other customers have made that you can look at. ALL shops have magazines of styles and/or patterns (both knit shops and material shops) that you can also peruse. This is shop #229.

7) Here is a different kind of shop on the third floor of the premises. (Room 334) They sell mostly velvets to make traditional (and non-traditional) Chinese-style jackets, qipaos, tangzhuan, etc. Samples are hanging near the ceiling. They also sell already made goods (see the hanging rack).

So, there you have MaoFangCheng. Enjoy the ride and the adventure.