Picture scouring mercados and Texas-sized boutiques, hunting through mom-and-pop shops and wandering hip neighborhoods for handmade goods. The Dallas-Fort Worth shopping scene takes one-of-a-kind local culture and turns it into something you can bring home. Here’s where to point your boots.
Deep Ellum, Dallas
Established as a freedman’s town after the Civil War, Deep Ellum went from gospel voices in the churches to live music bursting onto the streets. Nowadays, this neighborhood is all about art, music, culture, food and shopping—Deep Ellum took all things creative and doubled down, unarguably becoming Dallas’s hippest district.
Get yourself to Main Street and you’ll have a memorable experience just looking through the windows. Archer Paper Goods makes for a great souvenir stop (yes, you can make jewelry out of paper), and Deep Vintage (part of the celebrated Deep Ellum Denim) can hook you up with a throwback closet (and home goods!) that matches the carefree, innovative vibe of this only-in-Texas destination.
The Bishop Arts District, Dallas
In the Bishop Arts District—a small renaissance neighborhood full of former warehouses—you’ll now find 60-some Dallas boutiques, restaurants and galleries. And nearly every address here is one worth stopping for.
The best approach is to make a day of it: Start at Bishop Street Market to get acquainted, fuel up at Tribal All Day Cafe, and then simply follow your curiosity from block to block. M’antiques, Fete-ish and Dude, Sweet Chocolate are three prime examples of what you should expect—that is, complete and utter Bishop Arts originality.
Sundance Square, Fort Worth
Once you’ve sufficiently zenned out at the extraordinary Fort Worth Water Gardens, wander over to Sundance Square—an entire district, not a town common area—to wrap up your afternoon with some retail therapy.
This is the city’s brick-lined, pedestrian-focused heart, where locals and visitors alike go for dining, entertainment, good ol’-fashioned people-watching and of course, shopping. On Main Street, you’ll enjoy views of turn-of-the-century architecture alongside skyscrapers, the stunning courthouse serving as your compass as you wander the blocks. From cigar lounges to art galleries to urban-industrial fashion, Sundance Square makes it hard to go home empty-handed.
Highland Park Village, Dallas
If you’re looking to graduate from vintage-hip to luxury-upscale, meander your way over to Highland Park Village. The area’s upper-clase bona fides run deep: The Dallas community of Highland Park, anchored around the historic Dallas Country Club, was designed by the same architect as Beverly Hills back in the early 1900s. Highland Park Village was established shortly thereafter as America’s first shopping center, a beautiful open-air complex in the Spanish Colonial Revival style.
Though it’s been renovated since then, today’s Highland Park Village is still the centerpiece destination it was intended to be. Jimmy Choo, Rolex, Cartier, Ralph Lauren, Fendi, Dior...if you need to impress, you do it here.
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