Mexico City Shops

Located in a beautiful 1940's mansion in Polanco, this three story concept store—undoubtedly inspired by Colette in Paris—stocks books, music, vintage furniture, and hard-to-find international brands. They're basically out there to outfit the classic hipster with jewelry by Venessa Arizaga, Herschel backpacks, New Balance sneakers, and clothing from the likes of Vivienne Westwood and Comme des Garcons. In addition to all the foreign lines, the owners, husband and wife Max and Monica Feldman, are great at discovering local designers and mixing them in with the other big names. They've also recently opened a men's shop at Caballería in the up-and-coming Colonia Juarez.

While 180° has all your hipster basics covered with Fjällräven backpacks, special edition New Balances, and Penny skateboards, this shop's real allure comes from its mix of up-and-coming local clothing and design brands. You'll find Julia y Renata and Alejandra Quesada dresses, printed jumpsuits, capes and jackets from Carolina K, bikes by Saintvelo, designer chocolate bars from Casa Bosques, and magazines, books, and zines from local publishers.

Housed in a whitewashed, renovated home in the Roma and decorated with sleek bookshelves, casually placed Jean Prouvé chairs, succulents, and ferns, Casa Bosques offers a curated selection of indie magazines, journals, and books from small publishers. Their selection goes way beyond what you'll find in any of the city's more established bookshops and is a godsend for anyone interested in fashion, art, and design, as independent titles like The Gentlewoman, Apartamento, AnOther, Purple are hard to come by. Visitors are invited to leaf through the titles and make themselves comfortable in the homey space (they also make small batch chocolate bars). This summer, they opened up a new shop in Polanco's new mini boutique complex, Anatole 13.

If there's one designer who has managed to take traditional Mexican embroidery and textile techniques and make them contemporary and wearable—and not in a hippie-ish way—it's Carla Fernández. She's spent years traveling the country establishing partnerships with some of the best indigenous artisans to make her bold, geometric designs. The clothing rails at her shop at the Downtown Hotel were designed by Pedro Reyes, one of the most prominent conceptual artists in Mexico—a great match for Carla and her smart, sustainable clothing line.

Long silk dresses, draped trousers and culottes, and delicate blouses are the kind of feminine pieces you'll find at Peruvian designer Sandra Weil's flagship store. Located in Polanco, in a new complex of cool clothing and design boutiques, you can also find her elegant line of wedding dresses here, hanging in a beautiful system of vertical plywood racks designed by the up-and-coming architects Zeller y Moye. If you can't find what you're looking for, you can enlist her couture service to tweak any of her designs just for you. Photo: Moritz Bernoully, Courtesy Zeller y Moye

Savvy Studio is the design and branding studio that came up with the concept for this boutique shopping experience, bringing fashion, food, tea, and design into one locale in Polanco. Of course, they've designed most of the space, too. Here you can shop for ultra pared down clothing and accessories by the likes of Gabriela Artigas and Trista at Avery, leaf through hard-to-find art and design titles at Casa Bosques, check out the latest design trends at Galeria Mexicana de Diseño and finish up with a gourmet tea at Tomás and snacks from Villa de Patos.

This nomadic design market has been going since 2010, with 15 editions to date, where participating artists, fashion and product designers, and food and drink purveyors sell their wares. They're massive shopping events, where you can walk away with some pretty great finds from some of the best names in design, including clothing from Carla Fernández and Carolina K, mezcal from Mezcal Amores, furniture by Oscar Hagerman and Pirwi, and beautiful chocolates from unelefante. Watch their site for the announcement about their next edition.

Francisco Cancino's line of sleek, pared down women's clothing is a big hit among Mexico's magazine editors, and we can see why. First there are the elegant, season-less silhouettes that make his clothing a wardrobe perennial, and then there's the fact that it's all handmade by artisans across the country. Fittingly, his first shop in Polanco, designed by Emiliano Godoy and Tuux, is built with the same local, sustainable principles as his clothing. Check out Yakampot's sister brand, Arroz con Leche, for adorable kids clothes.

The brainchild of Maggie Galton, a NYC transplant who spent years working with artisans across the country, and business brain Maria Eladia Hagerman, Onora sells beautiful handicrafts designed for contemporary homes. Banish visions of multicolored fiestas from your head, though, their palette is restrained to black, white, grey, beige, and the occasional pop of color, and the products themselves are exquisite. They carry black clay candleholders from Oaxaca, table runners from Chiapas, serving dishes from Puebla, and much more—this shop makes us want to start over and redecorate.

Rodrigo Rivero Lake's office in a penthouse apartment in Polanco and his warehouse in Naucalpan are kind of insane, packed to the brim with museum quality antiques from Mexico, India, and beyond, along with paintings and sculptures by major modern Mexican artists. An incurable collector, he's spent a lifetime on the hunt both in Mexican flea markets, at European auction houses, and on the road in India. On the weekends, he heads to the Lagunilla Antiques Market in Mexico city, where all the vendors know him by name, and always have a thing or two to show him. He's also written the book on the influence of Japanese artisanry on Mexican Viceregal antiquities: It's heady stuff and might seem intimidating, but Rodrigo is a totally charming, welcoming host to anyone who visits his gallery. Ask enough questions and he'll give you a special tour of the space—he once showed us a trove of paintings by his old friend and fellow antiquarian Chucho Reyes, one of the most influential Mexican painters of the 20th Century. It's by appointment only and so worth it.