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The Crescent City's shopping is as eclectic as its music, food, and culture. In local boutiques and specialty stores, you’ll find everything from rare antiques to novelty T-shirts, artwork, jewelry, fashion, and foods that represent the city's varied flavors. Up and down Magazine Street and throughout the French Quarter, you'll spot old-world influences intersecting with modern trends, making it easy for even the most discerning shopper to find something new to treasure.
New Orleanians have a deep love for their city and its culture. For shoppers, this translates into pride-centric merchandise, including jewelry and clothing bearing city emblems, such as the fleur-de-lis—the stylized iris design associated with New Orleans since its early days—and Mardi Gras masks, black-and-gold Saints symbols, and humorous statements about political issues and local personalities. Residents strongly support local entrepreneurs, and there are many homegrown stores selling locally made goods.
Make sure to pay attention to some of the city's artwork. Posters designed around Jazz Fest and other special events, for example, often become collector's items. In the thriving arts districts, you'll find contemporary works by local artists alongside renowned names in the art world. The sounds of New Orleans—Dixieland, contemporary jazz, rhythm and blues, Cajun, zydeco, rap, hip-hop, and the unique bounce beat—are available in music stores, such as Louisiana Music Factory and Peaches Records, and at live-music venues including Preservation Hall, Snug Harbor, and House of Blues. Bookstores stock a plethora of local books on photography, history, cooking, and folklore. Clothing stores focus on items that wear well in New Orleans's often intense heat and humidity, with styles ranging from the latest runway fashions to vintage frocks and styles by local designers.
This eclectic record shop is among a stretch of local and mostly Black-owned businesses on Bayou Road that are well worth checking out. The shop carries new and used records and has an especially large collection of reggae and international LPs. A guest DJ often spins a set on Saturday afternoons.
A favorite resource for New Orleans and regional music—new and old—the Louisiana Music Factory has records, tapes, CDs, DVDs, sheet music, and books, as well as listening stations, music-oriented T-shirts, original art, and a stage that hosts frequent live concerts. This shop is a beehive of activity during the New Orleans Jazz Fest.
This funky record shop is stocked with LPs from local brass bands and bounce artists, classics and obscure selections from all over the world, and fun music-theme merch, like band-style tees with a New Orleans twist. They also give DJ and music production lessons for kids. Walls are reserved for 20 or so pieces that make up the Museum of Mediocre Art, a humorous dedication to oft-ignored thrift store paintings and more outsider art.
