EVER been to Magazine Street in New Orleans? It’s never too late to join the club. One of America’s most unique shopping strips is the ideal spot for picking up interesting gifts.
PHOTOS: MAGAZINE STREET GALLERY
Running approximately parallel to the Mississippi River between the city’s commercial core and leafy Audubon Park, the mostly-strollable, tree-lined strip ambles on for six miles, each cluster of shops reflecting the needs and bent of the surrounding neighborhood. Neither crammed with chains nor jammed with touristy nonsense, Magazine Street is divided into distinct, easily digestible pieces, each several blocks long.
It’s a patchwork quilt, to be sure — neighborhood budget strips with liquor stores and down-at-the-heel supermarkets sit alongside East Village-like hipster hubs full of dive bars, breakfast-’til-4-p.m. cafes and ironic shops. Interspersed among them are West Bleecker Street-like enclaves where girly treats are displayed in Intermix-style boutiques. Boring? No.
Assuming you’re starting your crawl downtown, you’ll head through the Warehouse District, soon after arriving in the retail hub of the Lower Garden District. This is Magazine’s roughest, but arguably most interesting slab – don’t be put off by the after hours grilles on most street-facing windows. It’s anchored by men’s stores and has a San Francisco-meets-Williamsburg vibe.
Four-year-old boutique Vegas (No. 2042) is crammed with the likes of Modern Amusement and Stitches denim, while locals flock to retro barbershop Aidan Gill (No.2026). Gill offers hot shaves, books on etiquette, a raft of hard-to-find grooming products like Pecksniffs and a reassuringly ferocious cellphone ban. If only the staff were a little less chilly. That’s not a problem across the road at Jim Russell’s Records (No. 1837), a warehouse-like stash of vintage LPs with a crew that makes Jack Black in “High Fidelity” look like a part-timer.
Heading further up, closer to the actual Garden District, there’s another hipster hub, featuring made-to-order decal tees (browse the vast binder) at Bootsy’s Fun Rock’n (No. 3222) and a gallery-cum-grown-up-boys’-toys-store, Sputnik Ranch (No. 3029). Here, as a bonus, you’ll find racks of western-wear Scully clothes.
Too early for a beer at the grimy Rendezvous (No. 3101)? Duck into one of the two gelato purveyors that sit almost side by side here, La Divina (No. 3005) and Sucré (No. 3025). Both are a credit to the genre, for entirely different reasons — La Divina emphasizes local ingredients and has a down-to-earth flair, while Sucré is more of a sleek dessert boutique, complete with its own pastry chef, Tariq Hanna, a Detroit expat.
The next stretch of interest takes on a homier and tonier air. Stores are shoehorned into front-porched clapboard homes, signs waving jauntily above the front yard and oyster shells covering the earth around some of the sidewalk-bound trees.
It’s here you’ll find some of the street’s best offerings: deluxe cosmetics boutiques. After all, groomed glamour is a given for any Uptown girl.
Make Me Up (No. 3426) is all rocking chairs, wicker baskets and floral treats. It’s abutted by the Betty Boopish SheBop (802 Nashville Ave at Magazine). Kiehl’s-a-like Beauty 101 (No. 2728), an old apothecary, is not far away. Another indie-lotion peddler – Bath Junkie, a heavily fragranced DIY riff on Lush (No. 6071) – sits right at Magazine’s western tip.
The only-in-New Orleans named Mignon Faget – who sounds more like a deep-fried pastry than a jewelry designer – is known for her affordable and simple silver trinkets. The first of her two boutiques is in this strip (No. 3801), the other is further west in a converted bank (No. 4300). Opposite sits the finest and best regarded of the local galleries on the street, Cole Pratt (No. 3800).
There’s a lull for a while as you head up towards Audubon Park. The street is largely residential and reassuringly grimy. For food, detour into the basic Monica’s Grocery (No. 4201), with its ceiling fans, waiting benches and dirt-cheap po’boys. Soon after, you’ll come to Magazine Street’s fanciest bit, which comes complete with a gigantic Whole Foods and other things that upscale people require. Here, you’ll also find three of the street’s top addresses.
One is Shoefty (Nos. 6010) is a unisex shoe and clothing boutique with a killer selection of on-trend and hard-to-find labels (Repetto, Erin Fetherston, Zurlick), with stock that’s far less picked-over than at Barneys and company up north (yes, you might find that waitlisted dress on the rack in your size here). Also make sure to duck into Hazelnut (No. 5515). It’s helmed by New Orleans-born “Mad Men” co-star Bryan Batt and partner Tom Cianfichi. Besides Batt’s own fabric designs and tabletops, he’s sought out niche artisanal goodies like the bright-colored ceramics from Russian pottery collective Art Department.
Finally, there’s Dirty Coast (No. 5704). Like Bootsy’s, it churns out New Orleans Pride T-shirts and witty post-modern decals for $20 or so that are a southern answer to Brooklyn Industries (bestsellers include “Be a New Orleanean Wherever You Are” and “New Orleans, So Far Behind We’re Ahead”). Owner Blake Haney fired up his business online a month after Katrina and set up this boutique just over a year ago. Do drop in.
For more information on Magazine Street, visit http://www.magazinestreet.com