Design Stores
A list of the coolest design shops around.
Online Shopping
A+R
Abbot Kinney - Venice, CA United StatesA+R equals good design. More bazaar than gallery, the shop stuffs a globe's worth of design objects in its modest space. Objects likes a handgun shaped vase, an agate candle holder, wood veneer placemats and crinkled ceramic cups.
A+R
Silverlake - Los Angeles, CA United StatesA+R equals good design. More bazaar than gallery, the shop stuffs a globe's worth of design objects in its modest space. Objects likes a handgun shaped vase, an agate candle holder, wood veneer placemats and crinkled ceramic cups.
Arundel
Mid City/Beverly - Los Angeles, CA United StatesDo you really need a 150,000 square foot mega-bookstore to have something for everybody? Arundel Books proves that you don't. The store stocks new, used and rare books but does so in way as to not artificially bulk up their shelves with any...
Ballenford Books on Architecture
The Annex - Toronto, ON CanadaWriting about music may be like dancing about architecture, but writing about architecture seems as natural as dancing to the music. At least if the sheer number of architecture titles as Ballenford Books on Architecture is any indication. What...
Base
South Beach - Miami Beach, FL United StatesReader Suggested: The store carries lines by Vivienne Westwood Anglomania and other cult labels. They also carry accessory lines by Martin Margiela and other less known labels (Erika Pena, Louis Moralis, King Baby) I find their taste quite stunning. The best part of their store is their taste in music. I find...
Base
South Beach - Miami Beach, FL United StatesReader Suggested: The store carries lines by Vivienne Westwood Anglomania and other cult labels. They also carry accessory lines by Martin Margiela and other less known labels (Erika Pena, Louis Moralis, King Baby) I find their taste quite stunning. The best part of their store is their taste in music. I find...
Builders Booksource
Ghiradelli Square - San Francisco, CA United StatesWith the proliferation of home-improvement shows it seems that if you have a thousand dollars and a can of paint you can turn any room into a designer showroom. For anyone who is looking for a reality check or a house that doesn't involve MDF, stop by Builders Booksource. The aptly named...
Builders Booksource
Fourth Street - Berkeley, CA United StatesWith the proliferation of home-improvement shows it seems that if you have a thousand dollars and a can of paint you can turn any room into a designer showroom. For anyone who is looking for a reality check or a house that doesn't involve...
Composition
Belmar Shopping Center - Lakewood, CO United StatesEver walk into a design store to find items that don't really seem to serve a purpose. And then you're told by a salesperson (assuming they even acknowledge your existence), that this was seen in X magazine and if you don't want to buy one, well then you're pedestrian. I...
David Mirvish Books
The Annex - Toronto, ON CanadaThere's a subtle art to picking the perfect coffee table book--it must be substantive, but easy to digest, intriguing, yet relatable. David Mirvish Books has about a thousand iterations of the perfect coffee table book. For those in the art...
Fitzsu
Palm Springs - Palm Springs, CA United StatesWhen you happen upon a design store and the salesperson (adorned in all black of course) encourages you to pick up items and fiddle with them you know you're on to something. This was exactly our experience at Fitzsu. The sanitary appearing...
Fitzsu
Melrose Heights - Los Angeles, CA United StatesWhen you happen upon a design store and the salesperson (adorned in all black of course) encourages you to pick up items and fiddle with them you know you're on to something. This was exactly our experience at Fitzsu. The sanitary appearing...
I.D.
Lakeview/Wrigleyville - Chicago, IL United StatesIn a intriguing symbiotic retail relationship, ID carries beautiful, artful home accessories and one side of the store and a wall of eyeglasses to help, we suppose, see the objects clearly. Look for everything from sleek cufflinks to spare,...
Matter
SoHo - New York, NY United StatesIn it's Manhattan incarnation (the original shopping being Brooklyn bred), Matter has grown up without forgetting where it came from. Exemplary design is the tie that binds the stores offerings. On one side sits a row of display cases holding...
Matter
Park Slope - Brooklyn, NY United StatesMatter is high design objects without high design attitudes. Look for interesting lighting and bent-ply furnishings. Seek out unique vases, pillows, tableware, jewelry and other accessories. Don't miss the brainy books on art and design.
MoMa Store
Midtown - New York, NY United StatesIt makes sense that best modern museum in the country has the best museum store as well. The MoMa Store has taken the idea of a museum store to another level, augmenting the usual books and design objects found at every other museum store with exclusive to MoMa design work, a rotating selection...
MoMa Store
SoHo - New York, NY United StatesIt makes sense that best modern museum in the country has the best museum store as well. The MoMa Store has taken the idea of a museum store to another level, augmenting the usual books and design objects found at every other museum store with...
Moss
Melrose Heights - Los Angeles, CA United StatesMore museum of industrial design than design store, Moss displays its collection of exquisite modernist home accessories like artwork. Among the items are toasters, toothbrush holders, colanders and ashtrays and larger items such as coffee tables and chairs. The prices will sometimes make you...
Moss
SoHo - New York, NY United StatesMore museum of industrial design than design store, Moss displays its collection of exquisite modernist home accessories like artwork. The long, bright, sanitary space has several rows of products for customers to snake through, each accompanied...
New Museum
Lower East Side - New York, NY United StatesWithout the space of more well-to-do cultural institutions, the New Museum shop aims for maximum impact. The main attraction is naturally the wall of art books and magazines. The cosmopolitan, thought-provoking selection is worth a long,...