Shopping
In the Big Easy the next closest rival for your money after dining is likely the city’s A to Z of eclectic retail shops. Collectors of fine antiques, vintage and upscale clothing buffs, nostalgia fiends, dyed-in-the-wool craft nuts, and single-minded hobbyists alike could not ask for better hunting grounds. From custom-made perfumes and hand-stitched European-style finery to rare 18th-century books and imported Balinese bamboo furnishings, New Orleans seems to offer a little bit of everything under the subtropical sun.
Anyone who has traveled abroad knows of shopkeepers in some cities, which shall remain nameless, who have elevated to high art the ill treatment of customers—even those who speak fluent French. Fortunately, the prevailing warm winds of bona fide Creole hospitality that sweep through New Orleans have a way of making the easily intimidated out-of-town shopper feel right at home, even in the city’s haute retail enclaves like Saks Fifth Avenue and Gucci. Visitors likewise can duck into a third-generation antiques shop just to admire a Tiffany tea service and expect to be accorded the same treatment as a major collector. Or step into one of this waterfront’s funky bric-a-brac shops; if you’re lucky you might meet one of the colorful characters—and there are plenty—for which the city is known.
And fun? Just as the Crescent City’s hot dining spots and even hotter nightclubs are the stuff of legend, so too are the myriad shops every bit as diverse and unique as the people who own them. Shop owners in this heavily touristed town are accustomed to the ways of travelers from all over the world. And they enjoy breaking the ice with newcomers and putting them at ease, usually with a polite “Where y’all from?” It’s all part of this port city’s more than 300-year-old tradition of commerce and trade.
Unlike most other sections in this book, this chapter is organized by three main shopping districts—the French Quarter, Warehouse District, and Uptown—followed by some of the city’s better known shopping complexes located in the French Quarter and riverfront. While additional retail clusters exist throughout the metropolitan area, those selected for this chapter were chosen, among other reasons, for their ease of accessibility and diversity. We’ll start in the French Quarter and wind our way leisurely down the Quarter’s main shopping streets (Royal, Decatur, and St. Peter, to name a few). You’re going to meet some interesting locals along the way, people who help make a New Orleans shopping spree unlike anything you’ve experienced. Let’s burn some plastic.
Shopping - The Arts
New Orleans abounds with great artists surrounded by a population that truly understands and appreciates their work. However, unlike other communities of artists, these probably never come in contact with a bow, a leotard, or a period costume. Instead they take food and with inspired levels of cunning and craft create the magic of barbecue shrimp, bread pudding, or a hot roast beef po-boy.
And that’s just the folk art.
Among the most accomplished of these truly brilliant artists whose work touches millions of waistlines each year would be such luminaries as Paul Prudhomme, Susan Spicer, and just about everybody’s mama. As a result, the Big Greasy may not have quite as developed a fine arts scene as, say, cities where people think that eating is something you do just to survive.
If you are looking for the New Orleans arts scene, you will find that it is small. However, it is full of artists who have been forced to find ways to reach and cultivate an audience of people who would just as soon go out to dinner. Often performances are accompanied by open discussions between musicians or dancers and audience members about the opera or ballet that they’ve both just experienced.
Professional artists regularly bring their work to schools, facing, perhaps for the first time, the challenge of figuring out how to move a child. The city’s orchestra, which is owned and operated by its musicians, regularly performs under less than ideal circumstances when it could just as easily never leave the comfort of the Mahalia Jackson Theater. But then it would never reach that audience who will only hear music played out in the suburbs or in a park. Yes, the New Orleans art scene is small—but it’s full of inspiration.
1. Arcadian Books And Prints
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 523-4138
Address: 714 Orleans St.
Description: Desmond Russell opened this funky trove of Francophile tomes half a block off Royal Street in 1981 and today carries thousands of rare and secondhand French-language volumes in philosophy, science, religion, drama, and history. In the fine tradition of secondhand bookstores, a couch near the stacks has seen better days and invites an angle of repose for anyone eager to peruse Balzac, The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and other rediscovered literary gems. Floor-to-ceiling shelves stock a wide array of books in English on local subjects, including Louisiana, the South, horticulture, art, and regional cooking.
2. Arius Art Tiles
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 529-1665
Address: 504 St. Peter St.
Description: Lovely ceramic tiles handcrafted by artists in Santa Fe, New Mexico, are the specialty of this tidy Jackson Square shop. Collectors and browsers alike should check out the hand-painted artworks incorporating Latin, Hebrew, Southwestern, Mayan, mystical, jazz, and Native American themes. A line of New Orleans-themed tiles includes fun scenes of the French Quarter and Bourbon Street, Cafe du Monde, crawfish boils, and Mardi Gras. One wall features several multitile murals, including a brilliantly colored Amazon rain forest teeming with red and gold macaws in flight.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 923 Decatur St.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 212 Chartres St.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 204 Chartres St.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 332 Chartres St.
7. Esoterica
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 581-7711, (866) 581-7711
Address: 541 Dumaine St.
Description: Some occultists appreciate household gadgets that are both handy and macabre. This probably explains the skeleton beer bottle openers stashed behind the counter, just looking to pop the top on a cold bottle of Voodoo beer. Handy and macabre also describes the bookrack. Browsers will find a large selection of tomes for the Wiccan on their gift list, such as The Complete Book of Witchcraft, The Pagan Book of Days, Aleister Crowley’s Magick, and Tarot dictionaries. Brass chalice sets and earthy handmade brooms with cypress handles are found alongside chicken-foot necklaces, herbs, camphor candles, incense, and a selection of pentagram-shaped jewelry and earrings.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 624 Pirate’s Alley
9. Fleur De Paris
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 525-1899, (800) 229-1859
Address: 523 Royal St.
Description: From silk and linen to cotton and lace, elegant finery fit for the Southern belle in any woman are specialties of this corner shop known for its chic, eye-catching window displays. Beaded evening gowns and bridalwear fashioned by in-house designers overlook cocktail dresses, separates, and antique-style lingerie. Check out the unique custom-made hats with European-style ribbons, flowers from Paris, and South American feathers and other stylish accessories for the modern woman who thinks locally and dresses globally.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 1041 Bourbon St.
11. French Antique Shop Inc.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 524-9861
Address: 225 Royal St.
Description: As the name implies, this shop specializes primarily in 19th-century and later treasures from France. And, as discriminating antique collectors will attest, the timelessness of handcrafted works of art from this era has rarely been matched. Start with the stately collection of Baccarat crystal and French bronze chandeliers for some irrefutable elegance. Then work your eyes down to the gorgeous hand-carved cherry-wood and mahogany armoires, marble mantels, and provincial gold-leaf mirrors, fine porcelains, and marble statuary.
12. Gem De France
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 571-6305
Address: 729 Royal St.
Description: Whether you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Francophile or searching for mementoes that remind of your recent trip to Avignon, this is the place for you. Lyon-born Sonia Cohen helps oversee what may be among the city’s best spots for decorative items, household wares and collectibles from the country that put ooh-la-la on the map for globetrotters worldwide. From milled soaps from Marseilles and Provençal-hued tablecloths and napkins to artwork, clocks, posters and hand-made pewter items, everything inside this well-lighted French Quarter venue bears the signature look of something French. “Everything the person needs to add a touch of France to their home,” says Cohen.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 824 Royal St.
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Address: 709 Royal St.
15. The Kite Shop
City: New Orleans, LA
Category: Shopping
Telephone: (504) 524-0028
Address: 542 St. Peter St.
Description: From beautifully hand-painted Balinese silk creations to those emblazoned with Charlie Brown’s face, the second oldest shop of its kind in the United States features perhaps the most intriguing selection of kites anywhere in the city. Duffers accustomed to tree magnets will want to check out the line of windless kites (it’s about time), 6-foot graphite Prism Ions, box-shaped numbers called The Cube (designed to dart and tumble in the wind), and the Delta wing–shaped squadron ready for stealth action. The shop, on the Canal Street side of Jackson Square, offers decorated minikites as well as New Orleans–themed fly-by-days with Mardi Gras masks and crawfish.