Anna Povo
Look for an elegant and innovative selection of relaxed knits, coats, and dresses at this stylish boutique. Anna Povo's designs tend to sleek and minimalist, in cool tones of gray and beige.
Characterized by originality and relative affordability, the shopping scene in Barcelona has become a jubilant fair of fashion, design, craft, and gourmet food. Different parts of town specialize in different goods, and you can explore parts of the city through shopping and browsing boutiques.
The Ciutat Vella, especially the Born-Ribera area, is rich in small-crafts shops, young designers, and an endless potpourri of artisans and merchants operating in restored medieval spaces that are often as dazzling as the wares on sale. Even the pharmacies and grocery stores of Barcelona are often sumptuous aesthetic feasts filled with charming details. Although the end of rent protection has seen many heritage establishments close, a new law will at least ensure that their unique architectural and decorative details will remain intact. Hat shop Sombrerería Obach and candlemakers Cereria Subirà are two old town traders who have remained charmingly unchanged over the decades.
Shopping for design objects and chic fashion in the Eixample is like buying art supplies at the Louvre: it's an Art Nouveau architecture theme park spinning off into dozens of sideshows—textiles, furnishings, curios, and knickknacks of every kind. Any specific shop or boutique will inevitably lead you past a dozen emporiums that you hadn't known were there. Original and surprising yet wearable clothing items are Barcelona's signature contribution to fashion. Rather than copying the runways, Barcelona designers are relentlessly daring and innovative, combining fine materials with masterful workmanship.
Browsing through shops in this unique metropolis feels more like museum-hopping than it does a shopping spree. Design shops like Doméstico and Jaime Beriestain delight the eye and stimulate the imagination, while the area around the Passeig del Born beckons young designers from across the globe. Passeig de Gràcia has joined the ranks of the Champs Elysées in Paris and Rome's Via Condotti as one of the great shopping avenues in the world, with the planet's fashion houses well represented, from Armani to Zara. Exploring Barcelona's antiques district along Carrer Banys Nous and Carrer de la Palla is always an adventure. The shops open daily around Santa Maria del Mar in the Born-Ribera district range from Catalan and international design retailers to shoe and leather handbag designers, to T-shirt decorators and coffee emporiums. The megastores in Plaça de Catalunya, along Diagonal, and in L'Illa Diagonal farther west sell clothing, furniture, furs, books, music, and more. The village-like Sarrià and Gràcia are filled with intimate antique and clothing shops, with friendly boutique owners who add a personal touch.
Look for an elegant and innovative selection of relaxed knits, coats, and dresses at this stylish boutique. Anna Povo's designs tend to sleek and minimalist, in cool tones of gray and beige.
Lighting design and kitchen and bathroom fixtures, along with furniture and diverse objects by acclaimed architects and designers, are on display here in this clean-lined upper Barcelona shop managed by architects and interior designers Marta Ventós and Nuria Torrecilla.
In the same building where Joan Miró was born, Artevistas showcases a rotating collection of contemporary art, with an emphasis on young and emerging talent. Though many of the featured artists are from or based in Barcelona, notable international artists including actor and photographer Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead and The Libertines frontman, Peter Doherty, have exhibited here.
Under her own label, Silvia Garcia Presas—the creator of El Avant—offers quietly elegant and effortlessly chic clothing for women in her simple boutique at the top end of Enric Granados. Fabrics are 100% natural (organic cotton, alpaca wool, etc.), and the generous and easy cuts are transgenerational and flattering.
If you're looking for a one-of-a-kind statement piece for your home, look no further than Azul Tierra. This 1,400-square-foot showroom is filled with weird and wonderful interior design from all around the world, from sculptures, to ornaments, knickknacks and furniture—all carefully selected by owner and designer Toni Espuch on his travels.
This family-run jewelry shop has an on-site workshop where you can see the jewelry being made. There are several collections, including one inspired by travelers and another that celebrates cultures around the world.
The Bagués dynasty has bejeweled barcelonins since 1839. While they stock much that glitters, the Lluís Masriera line of original Art Nouveau pieces is truly unique; intricate flying nymphs, lifelike golden insects, and other easily recognizable motifs from the period take on a new depth of beauty when executed in the translucent enameling process that Masriera himself developed. The location in Moderniste architect Puig i Cadafalch's Casa Amatller in the famous Mansana de la Discòrdia on Passeig de Gràcia is worth the visit alone, although sadly, the interior of the shop bears little of the building's exuberance.
Barcelona's prime purveyor of Moroccan goods, ceramics chief among them, the wares here are generally of good price and great quality. Other African countries are represented, too, such as spectacular busts covered in tiny beads from Cameroon.
One of two gallery spaces within two minutes walking distance from the other. The focus is on street art, graffiti, and urban contemporary pieces. Originally from Los Angeles, painter and urban architect, Robert Burt, opened the creative space in 2003 as a workshop and hangout for young artists. The medieval basement is sometimes used as an event space. Paintings can be shipped all over the world.
Crafts, disguises, puzzles, games, and a thousand things to make you want to be a kid again are on display in this creative child-oriented gift shop on one of Gràcia's most emblematic squares.
Any shoe store that satisfies the legendary three B requirements—bueno, bonito, and barato (good, beautiful, and cheap)—is not to be missed. Shoes in many styles from sandals to stilettos pack this popular Gràcia shoe emporium.
Barcelona Design, a spare, cutting-edge furniture and home-accessories store, has moved into a former industrial building near the sea. BD cofounder Oscar Tusquets Blanca, master designer and architect, gives contemporary-design star Jaime Hayon plenty of space here. The works of past giants, such as Gaudí's Casa Calvet chair, or Salvador Dalí's Gala loveseat, are also available—if your pockets are deep enough. It's not open on weekends.
BIBA specializes in natural leather, cotton, organic fibers, and other sustainable materials, and their leather bags and accessories are are made using traditional artisan techniques such as vegetable tanning and hand braiding. There’s even a line of products dedicated to travelers, including suitcases, toiletry bags, and wallets. The flagship shop is in Barcelona but they’ve expanded to other major cities across Spain.
Choose from the vast selection of Catalan and Spanish wines at this high-ceilinged bodega, which also sells fancy cheeses, pâté, Iberian ham, and other gourmet fare to go. It’s also a wine and tapas bar, so you can sample a bit of everything before you buy.
Look carefully for the stairway leading one flight up to this 73-store antiques arcade off Passeig de Gràcia. You never know what you might find: dolls, icons, Roman or Visigothic objects, paintings, furniture, cricket kits, fly rods, or toys from a century ago. Bargaining is common practice—but Catalan antiques dealers are tough nuts to crack.
Glazed tiles, glass objects, and colorful sets of cups and saucers are on sale at this little shop just off Plaça Sant Jaume. Translatable as "Box of Mud" in Catalan, Caixa de Fang shows handmade earthenware cooking vessels from all over Spain, as well as boxwood and olive-wood kitchen utensils.
This internationally famous Spanish shoe emporium (which also now includes several boutique hotels) has offers a large line of funky boots, heels, and shoes of all kinds. Men's, women's, and children's shoes are displayed against an undulating chrome-and-wood backdrop designed by architect Benedetta Tagliabue.
Originally from Venezuela but professionally based in New York, Carolina Herrera and her international CH logo have become Barcelona mainstays. (Daughter Carolina Herrera Jr. is a Spanish resident and married to former bullfighter Miguel Báez.) Fragrances for men and women and clothes with a simple, elegant line—a white blouse is the CH icon—are the staples here. Herrera's light ruffled dresses and edgy urban footwear add feminine flourishes.
Committed to sustainability and the welfare of animals, Casa Carot sources fresh cheese from local farms in the Catalunya region. Small but well styled, it’s the perfect pit-stop on your way to a picnic in Ciutadella Park.
On Barcelona's most important shopping street, Casa del Llibre is a major book feast with a wide variety of English titles.
The Triangle d'Or or Golden Triangle at the top end of the Rambla on Plaça Catalunya is a stylish and popular complex and home for, among other stores, FNAC, where afternoon book presentations and CD launches bring together crowds of literati and music lovers.
In 2010 the Catalan government created the registered trademark Empremtes de Catalunya to represent Catalan artisans and to make sure that visitors get the real deal when buying what they believe to be genuine products. The official shop now sells jewelry re-created from eras dating back to pre-Roman times, Gaudí-inspired sculptures, traditional Cava mugs, and some bravely avant-garde objects from young artisans—all officially sanctioned as fit to represent the city.
Known as the city's oldest shop, having remained open since 1761 (though it was not always a candle store), this "waxery" (cereria) offers candles in all sizes and shapes, ranging from wild mushrooms to the Montserrat massif, home of the Benedictine abbey.
Catalans are pros when it comes to chocolate and Chök, the Chocolate Kitchen, is a local favorite thanks to their assortment of chocolates as well as their vegan cakes and pastries, all made daily, with natural ingredients. The shop on Carrer Carme is where it all began but the Barcelona-based brand has since added locations throughout the city and elsewhere in Spain.
International brands for women in an elegant uptown setting include exclusive pieces by designers Jill Sander, Emilio Pucci, Matthew Williamson, Elie Saab, and others.
This Barcelona institution originally opened in 1908 as a candy store and later evolved into a grocery store---or "colmado"---selling food, wine, and spirits. Back in the day, it was the first place in Barcelona to sell exotic luxuries like Scotch whisky or condensed milk. Since 1951, it has been run by the Lafuente family who continue to stock the finest brands of national and international wine and spirits, as well as Spanish gourmet food products.
Local designers Elisabet Vallecillo and Javier Blanco founded this sustainable women’s fashion brand, whose casual minimalist pieces are crafted entirely in Barcelona using only natural organic fabrics such as cotton and silk.
Coquette specializes in understated feminine beauty, with a small but careful selection of mainly French designers, like Souur, Des Petits Hauts, and Spain's own Hoss Intrópia. Whether it's a romantic or a seductive look you're after, Coquette makes sure you'll feel both comfortable and irresistible.
The 19th-century windows of this lovely corner shop overlooking Plaça del Pi burst with all sorts of home textiles—from humble, superb-quality tea towels to country-chic patchwork quilts. If they don’t stock the cushion cover you're after, it probably doesn’t exist, although the most unique take-home item is a gingham bread bag—a sausage-shaped carrier for your morning baguette.