Anokhi
At this shop find lovely, colorful, and quality clothes with block-print designs from Rajasthan.
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Mumbai is a shopper's town: in the same day, you can sift through alleys full of antiques in Chor Bazaar, haggle for trinkets on the Colaba Causeway, and stop in at the Brioni showroom at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel for marked-up luxury goods (though we'd recommend you get your Chanel and Armani back home to avoid the huge import taxes).
The Causeway, Kemps Corner, and Breach Candy are all trendy shopping areas in South Mumbai; the latter two are chic and pricey. A walk down Colaba Causeway will probably take you past most of the things you want to buy in India—shoes, clothes, cheap knickknacks, cheap cotton clothing, jewelry, and wraps—displayed at stalls lining the road; more expensive items are found in the air-conditioned shops and boutiques behind the stalls on this same road.
The arcades in top hotels offer a little bit of everything for a lot more money than anywhere else, but the merchandise is beautiful and the pace unhurried (and it's climate-controlled). If you're looking for the kind of stuff you can't get anywhere else in the world, and a more vibrant experience, throw yourself into the middle of one of Mumbai's famous bazaars. After all, odds are you didn't come to India to visit the Louis Vuitton boutique.
The city's department stores are good for one-stop shopping, and Fabindia and the Bombay Store both have a large number of branches in the city.
Throughout Mumbai many smaller shops are closed on Sunday (some of the suburbs are closed a different day: in Worli, up to Bandra, they're closed Monday; and in Bandra, up to the suburbs, they're closed Thursday, although many areas are also in the process of switching to Sunday). Malls, however, are open every day. They are especially crowded on the weekend (mall-gazing—that is, large-scale window shopping—has become a new Mumbai leisure activity).
Once you've exhausted Mumbai proper, you can venture out to the suburbs, where prices tend to be lower and the malls more numerous. Linking Road in Bandra is a trendy place to shop, and Juhu's main strip, Juhu Tara Road, is lined with cutting-edge new boutiques, shops, art galleries, and restaurants.
Some good and cheap Mumbai buys: silver jewelry, handicrafts, handloom cotton and silk clothing and household items, eyeglasses, DVDs, CDs, and books.
At this shop find lovely, colorful, and quality clothes with block-print designs from Rajasthan.
A must for souvenir shoppers, the friendly Bombay Store sells clothing and accessories for men, women, and children, silk by the meter, housewares, organic wellness products, and gifts. There are a number of branches in the city, but the Fort one is the most expansive.
Established in 1860, Phillips has the best choice of old prints, engravings, and maps in Mumbai. It also sells many possessions left behind by the British—Staffordshire and East India Company china, old jewelry, crystal, lacquerware, and sterling silver.
This is a tiny, classy boutique with exquisite silk blouses and shirts, scarves, ties, dupattas (long, thin scarves for draping), and silk-edge purses and wallets.
There's a small but representative selection of Indian handicrafts at reasonable prices here.
This store showcases the best of Indian fabrics—khadis (homespun cotton), muslin, vegetable-dyed silks, and embroidered materials. You can find women's clothing (saris, kurtas, skirts, trousers, blouses, and kurtis) as well as men's shirts and kurtas, children's clothes, tablecloths, curtains, cushion covers—and napkins fashioned from these beautiful materials, some of which is also available by the meter. The Fort location is the address to head to—it's in a high-ceilinged, period building, with a wide selection—but there are a number of branches all over the city.
This is a trove of cotton bargains in a long row of open-air stalls, with mounds of colorful, cheap, mainly Western clothing for all ages. The name is completely incongruous—there is nothing fashionable about this street, but the knock-offs are cheap (come prepared to bargain and bargain again). Come around 11 am, when the crowds are thinner and the sun has not yet peaked—and bargain.
This is an elegant gallery in the Fort district, full of works by modern masters like Atul Dodiya and rolling exhibitions.
This old and trustworthy family-run optician has good frame choices.
If you need some specs, a long-standing and reliable name in the eyewear business is Lawrence and Mayo. The main branch of this trusted brand is in Fort.
If you want to take home some Indian recordings, especially classical music, head for local favorite Rhythm House; along with pop, jazz, and everything else, the beloved store has an excellent selection of pacca gana (classical vocal music), Indo-Western fusion music, Hindi film music, and Indian instrumental music, as well as English and Hindi DVDs and VCDs.
Primarily a sari shop, Roop Milan also sells a huge variety of fine silks upstairs.
This is probably the best suit shop in Mumbai, with an extensive collection of fabrics and impeccable tailoring. You can get a full suit made here in about five days if you ask for it to be expedited, with a trial fitting, for about Rs. 15,000.
Owned by the Tata Group, a venerable and enormous Indian conglomerate whose founder built the Taj Mahal hotel, Tanishq is a reliable place to buy gold jewelry. The prices, however, are a little higher than elsewhere.