11 Best Places to Shop in Juárez and Anzures with La Zona Rosa, Mexico City

With volumes in multiple languages, Jorge Cuesta Librería de Paso is a great spot to find academic writing on any number of subjects in Mexico, as well as out-of-print copies of international and Mexican literature. The bookstore, named after a Mexican poet and scientist, is packed to the gills with antiques, too (some of which are for sale), on which nary an inch is spared for all the books within its walls.

French designer Vanessa Guckel moved to Mexico City in 2008 as an architect and five years later, she started her label Cihuah ("woman" in Nahuatl) to explore the intersections of architecture and clothing, the built environments closest to our bodies. At her studio and showroom Guckel displays clothing that uses experimental materials and geometric forms ranging from the indigenous Mexican huipil to elongated rectangles of cloth that zip into skirts and capes.

Located on the ground floor of the Secretariat of Welfare building on Paseo de la Reforma, the main retail outlet FONART (the National Fund for the Promotion of Handicrafts) is one of the country's best sources for authentic Mexican crafts: colorful embroidered textiles, ornate glassware, folk dolls, terra-cotta cookery, carved wood boxes, Day of the Dead figures, and more. You'll pay a bit more here than in many other markets and shops around the city, but FONART products are carefully selected directly from the best artisans in the country, who are in turn guaranteed a fair wage. There are a few other FONART locations around the city, including a very large branch in Benito Juárez on Avenida Patriotismo.

Also referred to as either Mercado Zona Rosa or Mercado Londres, this is the neighborhood's largest crafts market, featuring artistry from across Mexico, including jewelry, ceramics, and clothing. Vendors here can be intense, calling you to their stalls with promises of low prices (which you may or may not find). The market is an entire block deep, with entrances on both Londres and Liverpool. Most of the stalls sell silver and pewter, or crafts like serapes and ponchos, baskets, pottery, fossils, jade, obsidian, amber, and onyx. Expect to pay slightly higher prices here than at the Mercado Artesanal de la Ciudadela. Opposite the market's Londres entrance is Plaza del Angel, a small, upscale shopping mall, the halls of which are crowded by antiques vendors on weekends.

Shopping in the maze of antiques stores of Plaza del Angel is at its liveliest on Saturday. Combine a trip here with one to the Mercado Insurgentes, the crafts market across the way, for a full day of shopping.

This inclusive store prides itself on being a bookshop, cultural space, and café geared toward LGBTQ+ customers. Colorful and stocked with magazines, games, gifts, and a variety of books on sexuality, it gives way to a quiet coffee shop with excellent pastries. The space is ideal for working or meeting in small groups. Open mike nights, book club meetings, and drag shows make up the regular event listings.