What does shopping local even mean?

Shopping in New York can be particularly depressing.

I was in Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago and walking down N 6th Street felt like walking through an outdoor mall — Abercrombie & Fitch, Lululemon, Chanel, Everlane, the North Face, Warby Parker. Most, objectively, are stores that I shop in. But are those the stores I want to be shopping in New York?

That’s the issue.

There’s a time when I need to go buy sandals for the summer and I can pop into the Birkenstocks shop in Soho and be glad it exists so I can try on my sandals immediately and know they’re right. They fit, they work, I’m in and out and got it done. It’s like paying the bills online. Efficient.

But what happens when I want to shop inspired?

We were in the Lower East Side on that one Saturday in February when the city was in between blizzards and the sidewalks were filled with piles of snow, creating a maze so we walked single file through the packed streets. We wanted to shop but every store was the same you could find anywhere else and especially online.

Nothing felt personal. Nothing felt unique. Nothing felt worth shopping.

How do you shop local when there almost isn’t any local anymore? How do you even find local? What does local even mean?

My coworker and I spent a day in the city trying to shop local. We wanted to be free of algorithmic influences, the influencer-friendly stores that meant lines and a vibe and a scene. We wanted to discover.

We started on 14th and 7th and walked up to Chelsea Market, where I hadn’t been since before I moved from the city to Paris. The Fat Witch Bakery, where I used to buy myself little treats in college, still exists and that made me happier than I expected. While Anthropologie’s displays are always jaw-dropping and a testament to human handicraft, Chelsea Market wasn’t what we were looking for. We knew it wouldn’t be but figured we’d drop in anyways.

Then we walked through Meatpacking and I remembered nights at the Jane Hotel where we’d dance on the couches and coffee tables in high heels and my coworker told me that while dancing at the Jane is still a thing, no one’s in heels (good for them, the blisters were not worth it) and you can’t dance on the couches anymore. The end of an era.

We passed a shop with a patchwork jacket in the window that looked interesting but I saw the price and it felt too low for what the quality of goods was meant to be. When I see a price that doesn't equal what I know of industry costs, I get nervous about sourcing.

My closet is filled with clothes I’ve owned for many years. Probably more years than the Internet would tell you to keep something and possibly so many years that they could hit the vintage cycle of 20+ years because the Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, and Hollister pieces I saved up for in high school are hitting the trend cycle right about now, which doesn’t make me feel old at all. I keep things forever because I try to research before I buy and stick to places that align with what matters to me.

But how do you do that when you’re walking into a random shop on the street because the window display actually looked cool and you finally got excited because it feels like what New York used to be?

And when the price feels too low, does that erase the trust? It’s not like you can ask about it in store. The person selling the stock in the shop doesn’t usually know about the sourcing. I’ve tried asking what trade shows they attend to find brands, both out of professional and personal curiosity. I’ve never actually gotten an answer in store.

But then when I go into another shop and the prices are definitely my definition of “too high”, where do I go to find what I want to buy?

We walked for 25,000 steps and 7.9 miles and found 5 stores that made us excited. None of them were budget-friendly. None of them were chains. All of them were worth the visit.

The best store we found was Electric Sunshine at 168 Mott. We walked in because the hoodies in the window caught our eye and then we saw the poster saying Made Here, which usually means made somewhere in a factory near here. But they meant literally. The bolts of fabric on the floor just behind the racks and the woman sewing right behind them meant the whole process was the most transparent I’ve ever seen.

Which means I felt like I could trust them. They were small and they showed their work and I knew what was happening and why I’d want to keep their clothing in my closet over the years, because I saw it being made and it was no longer abstract but real.