Buying Fabric next to Apliu Street

Apliu Street's electronics market sits inside the district that was — and partly still is — Hong Kong's textile quarter. The streets that supplied the garment trade are a few minutes' walk from the gadget stalls, which is why people arrive for a phone charger and leave with three metres of cotton. This page covers the two places you can actually buy fabric near Apliu Street, when they are open, and where the fabric market went in 2023, because most guides online still send visitors to a market that closed.

First: the fabric bazaar moved in 2023 — this is where it went

The market people mean when they say "Sham Shui Po fabric market" began life as the Yen Chow Street Temporary Hawker Bazaar, known locally as "Pang Jai". Commissioned in 1978, it held some 190 stalls, most of them selling cloth, under a roof of corrugated metal, plastic sheets and tarpaulins. It closed on 31 January 2023: the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) closed it in order to release the surface land for public housing development.

The cloth traders did not simply disappear, and the market did not die. Hawkers who chose to stay in the trade moved into a purpose-renovated venue: 53 stalls in blocks 1 to 3 of the Tung Chau Street Temporary Market, let at the restricted auction FEHD held for them. That is the market you visit today, and it is the one the Hong Kong Tourism Board now lists as the Sham Shui Po Fabric Market, 269 Tung Chau Street, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon. It occupies three blocks, and its traders include original "Pang Jai" operators, so the fabric trade you find there is a continuation rather than a replacement.

The two places you can buy fabric today

There are exactly two fabric buying points a visitor should be carrying in their head, and they behave differently depending on the day you are in Sham Shui Po.

The day of the week decides it. Ki Lung Street is the one with a hard rule: the Hong Kong Tourism Board states plainly that its stalls are closed over the weekends, so a Saturday or Sunday fabric run means the market at Tung Chau Street instead. On a weekday both are open, and Ki Lung Street rewards going early — that is when its stalls start selling. Because the fabric stalls sit on the same street as the fastener wholesalers, a Ki Lung Street fabric trip doubles as a notions trip, which is worth knowing before you plan the rest of your morning.

Timing: what is open, and when

Getting there, and the walk from the electronics stalls

Everything on this page is reachable from the same MTR exit as the electronics market, so you do not need a second journey.

1. Sham Shui Po station (Tsuen Wan Line), Exit C1 — it brings you out directly onto Apliu Street, opposite the public toilets. Our how to get here page covers the route from Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui and Hong Kong Island.
2. Walk the market first. Apliu Street between Yen Chow Street and Nam Cheong Street is a part-time pedestrian street from 12 noon to 9:00 p.m. daily, so from midday the electronics stalls have the road itself.
3. The textile streets are the next block. Ki Lung Street (Button Street) carries the fabric stalls, and Yu Chau Street (Bead Street), Nam Cheong Street (Ribbon Street) and Tai Nan Street (Leather Street) run through the same quarter, with Cheung Sha Wan's Fashion Road to the west.
4. For the fabric market, continue to 269 Tung Chau Street. It stands close to the Ki Lung Street and Nam Cheong Street junctions — a few minutes on foot from the electronics market, not a separate trip.
5. Decide your order from the timing box above before you set off. On a weekend the Tung Chau Street market is the one to head for; on a weekday, Ki Lung Street early and the market afterwards also works.

What else these streets sell

These four trades share the same block of streets, and each one has its own page or official guide — so this is a pointer list, not a second guide.

• Buttons, zippers and clasps — Ki Lung Street (Button Street). The wholesale fastener trade that gave the street its name, alongside its fabric stalls: see the themed-streets guide to Sham Shui Po's Button Street and Ribbon Street.
• Lace and ribbon — Nam Cheong Street (Ribbon Street). Lace and ribbon in all sizes, shapes and colours, mostly at wholesale prices; the same themed-streets guide covers it.
• Beads and sewing supplies — Yu Chau Street (Bead Street). Wood, plastic and glass beads; one long-standing shop named by the Hong Kong Tourism Board is Bead Box Limited, 221 Yu Chau Street, tel +852 3106 5566 — listed in HKTB's Sham Shui Po self-guided walks.
• Leather and leathercraft — Tai Nan Street (Leather Street). Luen Cheong Leather Hong Kong, 173 Tai Nan Street, established 1948; Alri Star Leather Factory, 189 Tai Nan Street; and The Lederer, 219 Tai Nan Street — all named in the same HKTB walks guide.
• The fabric market in more detail — the wholesale side of the Sham Shui Po fabric trade is covered on the fabric market wholesale shopping guide on our sister site.

Two shops worth knowing while you are in the quarter

If you want fabric rather than a market stall, the district has shops that have been at it for generations. Yue Fung Loong, 96 Fuk Wa Street (tel +852 6247 7098), was founded in 1956, began as a rice shop, moved into textiles in the 1980s and now offers over 20 types of fabric with a drapery-seaming service. For the machines rather than the cloth, Sun Cheong Sewing Machine Company at Shop 14, 1/F, Welland Plaza, 188 Nam Cheong Street (tel +852 2720 2111) sells second-hand machines, from basic domestic models to vintage ones. Neither states its opening hours, so check on the day.

The Apliu Street frontage itself

Worth remembering that the electronics half of the trip and the textile half are the same afternoon. Apliu Street's stalls sell electronic goods and paraphernalia — mobile phone accessories, audio and electrical cables, batteries, film cameras, alarm clocks and second-hand devices such as radios and vintage typewriters. The Hong Kong Tourism Board's advice is that if there is ever a Hong Kong location to whip out your haggling skills, it is Apliu Street. Our flea market guide covers how the market day works.

The street's own piece goods shops are the historical other half of Apliu Street, and they are covered separately on our piece goods and fabric page. Between that page and this one you have the whole picture: the shops on Apliu Street, and the market and stalls a few minutes away where the fabric trade actually runs today.

Further reading on Apliu Street

• Piece goods and fabric on Apliu Street — the street's own piece goods shops and their history.
• Apliu Street opening hours — when the electronics stalls and shops are open.
• How to get to Apliu Street — MTR, bus and walking routes, including Exit C1.
• Apliu Street map — the street layout for the walk in step 3 above.
• The Apliu Street flea market — what the market stalls actually sell.
• Sham Shui Po complete district guide — where the textile streets sit in the district as a whole.

Official sources used on this page

• Government of the Hong Kong SAR — Food and Environmental Hygiene Department press release, 31 January 2023: "Pang Tsai" cloth hawkers to continue operations at another FEHD market tomorrow (closure date, the 53 stalls in blocks 1 to 3 of the Tung Chau Street Temporary Market, and the 300–400 m distance).
• Hong Kong Tourism Board — Sham Shui Po Fabric Market (current name, 269 Tung Chau Street address, the 2023 move, three blocks, original "Pang Jai" operators).
• Hong Kong Tourism Board — Sham Shui Po: self-guided walks (Ki Lung Street's fabric market, the early-morning start and weekend closure, and the shops named above).
• Transport Department — Pedestrian schemes for Sham Shui Po (the 12 noon–9:00 p.m. part-time pedestrian streets).
• Hong Kong Tourism Board — Apliu Street (what the electronics market sells).