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The areas with the highest concentrations of shops are Polanco, for upscale boutiques, luxury chains, modern furniture stores, and fine-art galleries; and the Zona Rosa, chock-full of clothing stores, adult shops, leather goods, and antiques.
La Condesa and La Roma, though better known for restaurants and cafés, are sprouting designer boutiques, primarily for a younger crowd and artsy types. Jewelers, shoe shops, vintage clothes, and hip housewares stores are squeezing in as well. Most cluster along avenidas Michoacán, Vicente Suárez, Amsterdam, and Tamaulipas, in Condesa, and Alvaro Obregón and thereabouts, in Roma.
Hundreds of shops with more modest trappings and better prices are spread along the length of Avenida Insurgentes and Avenida Juárez.
Visit this shop to check out the extensive collection of Mexican-made clothing and textiles in stunning, colorful patterns, from folk-art-print T-shirts, caps, and boots to beautiful handbags and ceramics. There’s a nice mix of items for all ages, including young kids. There are a few additional locations around the city.
Beautiful handicrafts and folk art—including alebrijes animal figurines, carved masks, bracelets, ceramics, and Día de Muertos decor—are sold in the rooms of this alluring shop set inside a rambling 18th-century mansion with a gorgeous courtyard and exterior gardens. It's a few steps from Plaza San Jacinto, offering a bit of calm from the bustle of vendors found there.
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.
