Quick answer: Skip Fifth Avenue. Hit Beacon’s Closet and L Train Vintage for the city’s best secondhand racks, Housing Works for thrift that funds a good cause, The RealReal in SoHo for designer resale, and the maker markets – Artists & Fleas and Brooklyn Flea – for one-of-a-kind gifts.
Real New Yorkers do not shop where the tour buses stop. The city’s best shopping is secondhand, independent and a little bit of a treasure hunt – which is also the most sustainable way to bring something home. The locals behind Like A Local Tours put this list together; every pick is somewhere we send our own friends. For everything else in our home city, see the New York City local guide.
Vintage and thrift: where the good racks are
Start in Brooklyn. Beacon’s Closet is the city’s defining trade-in vintage store – bring the clothes you are done with, leave with someone else’s designer castoffs at street prices. In the East Village, L Train Vintage keeps it cheap and chaotic in the best way, and Awoke Vintage plays the tidier, curated counterpoint from its shops on both sides of the East River.
For thrift with a mission, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in SoHo is a New York institution – used books, a cafe, and proceeds fighting homelessness and HIV/AIDS – with thrift shops across the city, alongside Goodwill NYNJ stores where genuine finds still happen.
SoHo: designer resale and conscious flagships
SoHo’s cast-iron blocks are where sustainable fashion went upscale. The RealReal is the authenticated designer-resale flagship – the smart way to buy the labels without the markup or the waste. Around the corner sit the conscious flagships worth a browse even if you only window-shop: Reformation, Eileen Fisher, Patagonia and Stella McCartney. And bookmark Pearl River Mart on Broadway – the family-run Asian American emporium that has been outfitting New York homes with ceramics, gifts and snacks since 1971.
Maker markets: gifts that are not fridge magnets
Artists & Fleas runs year-round markets of local designers, jewellers and vintage dealers inside Chelsea Market (daily) and in Williamsburg (weekends) – this is where “I got you something from New York” becomes a sentence people are happy to hear. Weekend treasure hunters should add Brooklyn Flea in the DUMBO Archway and Catbird, Williamsburg’s beloved jewellery shop. For the zero-waste crowd, Package Free in Chelsea Market proves sustainable can be giftable.
Make a shopping day of it
Pair any of these with the neighbourhoods around them – our NYC markets guide covers the food halls and fleas in depth. And if you want it planned for you, Like A Local Tours runs a Personalized NYC Shopping Tour – a personal stylist maps and leads a route matched to exactly what you are hunting for – or a private Williamsburg food tour you can stitch onto your Brooklyn vintage crawl. More neighbourhood picks live in the tours team’s own shopping-like-a-local guide.