Wholesale Fashion Outlet - Bangkok

Platinum Fashion Mall

The Mall is a huge, in-door market made up of various clothing and accessories stalls selling almost every imaginable item from underwear, maternity wear and winter clothing. It is made up of 5 floors of stalls selling almost everything imaginable. The top floor is a food court where you can get some cheap Thai food. Coffee shops can be found but they are usually tucked around corners. There are a number if coffee shops and snack places in the basement.

There are a number of banks inside the mall and a few outside offering money exchange to tourists. The rates are standard bank exchange rates.

Where Is It?

The Mall is situated in an area known as Pratunam. It's a wholesalers hub where you can buy wholesale amounts of clothes and accessories items. It's also very close to Pantip Plaza which is a major IT Mall. Pratunam is a very busy area and traffic jams are a daily occurrence.

To get there, it's probably best to grab a taxi and just tell them "Platinum". However, if you don't mind walking in the heat a bit, then you can take the Skytrain to either Chidlom (Where you can also go shopping at Central Chidlom) or Siam (great shopping area). But where ever you get off, you will have to walk a good 15 minutes and past Central World Plaza, over the small bridge which traverses the very dirty and smelly " San Sap" canal and then round the corner and opposite the Amari Watergate hotel.

Isles and isles of clothes stalls	Shoes for men, women and children

Accessories such as belts, wallets and bags	everywhere you look, isles of stalls

It is probably best to visit during the week because during holidays and during the weekends, it is FULL of teenagers, families and all types of locals milling around doing nothing and going nowhere. They tend to go with their friends or every family member, young or old, interested or not. They go there because it's cheap. The problem with cheap, especially in Platinum, is that it also means low to average quality so don't be fooled by the low prices.

Platinum Fashion Mall is fairly new to Bangkok. Before it was built, all the fashion stalls were down side streets on the opposite side of the road. Many fashion stalls are still there, but many of those stalls are now under one, air-conditioned, roof; and air-conditioning increases visitors.

Main entrance	Enter via the footbridge to different floors.

What Can I Buy There ?

As we've stated, you can buy most fashion items and accessories, but you won't find legal fashion brand names on offer. Most of the items on sale are of average quality but will suit kids and casual wear but it's not really "fashion". You can buy underwear, tops, t-shirts, shirts, blouses, jeans, sportswear, accessories, shoes and make-up; even maternity wear. It's all available but if you are a first time visitor, it might take you a long time just wandering around before you find what you are looking for. However, if you just want a stroll to see what's available and you don't get easily miffed at hundreds of people getting in your way, then it's worth a visit.

The floors are divided into sections similar to a department store. floors are divided into sections for men swear, women swear, kid swear, jeans and so on.

Who Shops There ?

The average shopper is someone after a bargain or someone who just wants to shop but who doesn't really need anything and isn't prepared to pay good money on something they don't really need.

There are also a large number of market traders who go with large wheelie bags that they fill up and drag around behind them before taking the items back to their own stalls elsewhere in Bangkok to sell.

Finally, you've got people who are into wholesale. They will come from overseas or from other provinces and are looking for cheap goods to ship home to sell or to take to their home provinces to stock up their shops.

Many people in Thailand have online stores and they sell items online and work from home.

My wife goes there every time she meets up with her friends and each time she comes back, she's always pleased to report how cheap everything was that she'd bought and points out that she was able to buy 3 or 4 tops for the same price that one would cost in a more up market shopping mall, but the truth of the matter is, she's bought 3 or 4 low quality, poorly made items of clothing that she rarely wears. Admittedly, she's only spent a few hundred Baht and she's happy, but her wardrobe is over flowing with rubbish bought from there.

That said, you can probably buy some decent items of clothing and if you like to wear different items and mix and match a lot, then Platinum offers the means to stock up without spending a fortune.

Our latest trip was against my wishes but was based upon my wife's visit to a website which was offering maternity wear and she'd seen trousers / jeans on sale for 390 Baht compared to 690 Baht + in Central World Plaza. The website was for a shop at the Mall and so off we went and eventually found the shop. Sure enough, the "jeans" were on sale but the quality was awful and I refused to let her buy them because she would have worn them once, complained they were uncomfortable and we'd have ended up buying better quality ones later.