Cyber Dog

Camden Street Market is quite a place. There are hundreds of stalls and vendors selling clothes and food. It has a distinct feel to it, a mix of classic and vintage style mixed with counter-culture and punk-culture with multiple tattoo shops, leather places, and all kinds of clothing with metal spikes in them.

The most interesting part of the Market is probably Cyber Dog – a special kind of store in the middle of the marketplace. Mix a bit of anime, robot-fetish, cyborg culture, cybergoth/cyberpunk, and you have yourself Cyber Dog. I stumbled upon it almost by accident, and it popped up out of nowhere: a large twenty-foot archway with illuminated letters of the store was centered between two larger-than life cyborgs. Walking through the open storefront, a dark ultra-violet glow greets visitors, as does a dancing highlighter-yellow-blonde man in a plastic outfit twirling some glow sticks on a string. Two professional girls were dancing on little balconies in the back of the store, where you walk through rows of expensive techno-style watches and electronics. Everything was overpriced, so I stopped looking at the tags, and made my way down the escalators where I heard the real music thumping.

The escalator is small, but serves to gradually let in the awe of the lower level. There still wasn’t any sign of florescent or tungsten lighting: all black light reacted with just about every product there. Shirts, pants, hats, glowy things, posters, and strange accessories illuminated in hot pink, lime green, and electric yellow colors. Along one wall was thirty shirts or so with electronic screens – some had scrolling words, others were graphic equalizers that thumped along to the loud bass in the store. While taking a video of a hat with pink spikes on it and panning around the room, a small girl with green hair told me to keep my camera away.

After that, we went on to yet another lower level, one that was 18+ with even stranger outfits and strange...things...in glass bubbles. This one is a little short – cause I really just needed one more thing to write about.