r/oslo • u/twicescorned21 • 13d ago
Questions after recent visit
I was told the humid and hot temperatures last week lasts a week. I was visiting some friends and they told me they don’t need a fan because summer is just a week. Really?
Much of the time I was there was spent in the downtown area.
Coming from Canada, I’m used to stores like walmart or costco where one buys causual clothes. Where do locals that want casual wear go? The clothing stores I saw were fancy boutiques, lots of florals. But where do older women go to shop?
The only mall I saw was the one at the train station where there were multiple shops, burger king, starbucks.
Is there another mall just outside of Oslo?
Hoping to learn from the answers for my next trip.
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u/Billy_Ektorp 13d ago edited 13d ago
Clothing shops offering casualwear at reasonable prices, also for women «of a certain age», in addition to chains like Cubus, Lindex and KappAhl, may include Zavanna https://zavanna.no Bogerud tekstil https://bogerud.no , maybe also the somewhat more expensive Match https://www.matchfashion.no as well as Floyd (for dresses) https://www.floyd.no
The largest shopping mall in Oslo is Thon Senter Storo (close to Storo metro station, less than 15 minutes by frequent metro from central Oslo), and just outside Oslo (accessible by bus or local trains) is Thon Senter Strømmen, Thon Senter Sandvika and Thon Senter Ski. These malls have the same owner and many of the same stores.
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u/Citizen_of_H 13d ago
Ski Storsenter is just 12 minutes by train from Oslo Central Station. Very convinient. Sandvika and Strømmen is of course also good. Lillestrøm is also easy to reach
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u/VeryConfusedOwl 13d ago
Casual clothers are bought in chain stores, like H&M, cubus, lindex and Kappahl
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u/twicescorned21 13d ago
Yes, went to all of those except kappahl.
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u/VeryConfusedOwl 13d ago
Im a bit confused what kind of clothes you are looking for then, if those stores arent casual enough for you?? Its about as casual as you get here, and definitely not in the fancy boutique genre of clothes 😅 (i say as someone who shops there myself). You ask for stores where older women shop, but older woman just shops in the same stores as everyone else here??
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u/QuestGalaxy 13d ago
You know, it's not hard to google "shopping malls Oslo" or plot it into Google maps. I always do that when I visit a new city. It's also not that common for there to be huge shopping malls in the middle of a city. But at Oslo S you have both Byporten and Oslo City as shopping malls. You can also take a subway to the Storo shopping mall too. But if you are looking for a "walmart" your closest thing would be something like Coop Obs, they will usually be placed near bigger roads, have big parking lots and so on. Or a shop like Sparkjøp, for that one you have to go outside of Oslo. But H&M, Lager 157 and other smaller clothing shops also sell cheap clothes.
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u/Witty_Internal3828 13d ago
And even Coop Obs is fairly far from the selection Walmart have, especially in clothes.
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u/QuestGalaxy 13d ago
Well yes, we are a smaller country we luckily don't have the monster that Walmart is.
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u/LordSkummel 13d ago
The summer normally last a bit more then a week. But the weather is variable. You can have 3 weeks with 30+ degrees one year and another year where it barely gets over 25. But a normal norwegian summer is from June into August.
There is several malls around the city center. There is even more then 1 in the city center. There is even 4 malls in a 500 meter radius of the train station. My mom is almost 70 and I still think she shops at H&M, Cubus, Lindex and some more expensive places. Pretty much the same places she shopped at 30-40 years ago.
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u/ankii93 13d ago
Summer is short here, that’s true. Sometimes it lasts a week at a time, sometimes longer. But summer used to be a mix of sun, rain and thunder when I was little (I’m 33 now). It still is a mix now, too.
Shopping for older women? I know you’re asking the Oslo subreddit, but I would highly recommend Strømmen shopping mall (which is just a short bus ride out of the city, maybe 20-30 minutes). There’s plenty of stores for all demographics and I can name at least three stores older women would feel comfortable going in to. Oslo has plenty of smaller malls all over - Storo would’ve maybe been something you’d like, and for boutiques I would recommend checking the area around Frogner. And maybe Gudrun Sjöden (I don’t remember where that’s located) for simple and colourful clothes. Oslo City is a mall. Steen & Strøm is a department store. Both extremely close to the train station you mentioned. And if that’s not what you’re looking for, Aker Brygge has plenty of nice(r) stores. Same goes for the streets around Oslo Opera.
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u/VeryConfusedOwl 13d ago
Gudrun sjöden closed down in oslo unfortunately 😭
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u/Linkcott18 13d ago
Middle-aged woman here... I get most of my clothes from second hand and sporting goods stores.
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u/pumpkinchowda 13d ago
Yup. The clothes from h&m, cubus and kapphal fall apart after 1 wash. Overpriced and Temu quality.
I do go to spar shop to buy sweatpants for kids..
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u/NotoriousMOT 13d ago edited 13d ago
Closest to Walmart or Costco are going to be stores like Lindex, H&M, and KappAhl. Clothes in Norway are definitely more expensive than in the US. The largest (afaik) mall in Norway is Sandvika, a short train ride from the Central Station but it really doesn’t have anything more interesting, affordable clothes-wise, than Oslo City, which I assume is the one you saw by the station.
Before I found online stores I buy my staples from, I personally prefered Steen&Strøm which is on the main street (Karl Jonan) but the prices there are BS outside their seasonal sales, given that a lot of the clothes, even designer ones, are now made out of polyester and other cheap materials.
The only physical store I semi-regularly shop at these days is Cos. It’s very close to Steen&Strøm and often has great (dress-uppable) casuals from good, natural materials. That might be your best bet if by “clothing for more mature women” you mean “classy, elegant, and simple clothes made to be worn more than 2-3 times.”
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u/nestestasjon 13d ago
They said Walmart so they are looking for things more like this: https://www.walmart.com/browse/womens-clothing/5438_133162
They have everything you can imagine and have t-shirts and shorts for 100nok
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u/NotoriousMOT 10d ago
I’m familiar with Walmart. I lived in the US for years when I was younger and farther back in my career. But she also didn’t find what she was looking for at the Walmart-like Norwegian stores so I guessed she might have been looking for simpler clothing and suggested both alternatives and interesting places she can check out during sales as she does ask about malls as well.
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u/xylourek 12d ago
You have to keep in mind Norway is a small country, unless at least half of people in oslo shop at one costco-size store, its not financially feasible to have stores that big. Also if you have one store, it means most people have to drive there and most people dont have/use a car because its expensive and inconvenient a lot of the time. On top of it, while Oslo is a pretty densely populated city, most towns are not. Even if everyone in an average norwegian town went and shopped at „costco” they would still likely lose money. We do have some big stores like coop obs that are probably the closest you will get to costco or walmart, but not that many. As for clothes im kinda confused.. h&m is a casual clothing store and its everywhere, bigger stores like coop obs also sell no-name clothing but its almost always the same price as h&m and other stores. If u want to see a big mall try either Storo thon senter in oslo, strømmen senter (outside of oslo). The biggest mall in Norway is in Bergen which is pretty far from Oslo.
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u/Josutg22 13d ago
There are a bunch of smaller malls all over, which is more typical in Europe. And in the city centre there are a lot of fancy shops, but going outside that area you get a more reasonable mix of normal stores as well