In an era when pretty much anything can be two-day-shipped to your house and high streets in major cities around the world are lined with a lot of the same storefronts, the point of shopping IRL seems increasingly moot. But once in a while, you walk into a store that feels like a genuine discovery, where browsing the shelves and racks stocked with things you can’t find anywhere else is an activity in itself. Beyond the Zara-fied scrums of Soho and 5th Avenue, New York City is still filled with these kinds of places—in fact, we could go on forever listing hundreds of niche shops, from a showroom that specializes in animal skulls to an emporium devoted entirely to high-end buttons. But here, we tried to distill it down to an array of stores that have a distinctively New York identity, where you’ll find exciting clothes, gifts and decor by independent designers (plus a few wild cards, like an old school Upper East Side pharmacy and a beloved Tribeca party store). Here, our take on the best shopping in New York City.

15 Best Shopping Places