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Capital L
Owner Louise stocks 52 funky up-and-coming designers to complement those already in the limelight. Hip sales staff break from tradition and actually help you find and try on clothes by local talents like Alice McCall.
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Central Station
You'll hear this store before you see it - the pumping beats lead down a long corridor to this temple to dance music. You can buy everything from slamming compilation CDs to technical DJ gear, and there's a self-contained hip-hop store onsite. Ask at the counter about coming events and party tickets.
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Chifley Plaza
For many Sydneysiders, luxury shopping starts and ends at the base of Sydney's tallest office block, with overseas name brands competing with Leona Edmiston , Herringbone , Oxford and RM Williams .
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Christensen Copenhagen
Owner Marianne Christensen buys up smart and fun imports with UK, Italian and French labels (as well as jewellery from Copenhagen), though Collette Dinnigan frocks can sometimes be seen here too. Expect fun and feminine party dresses and a staff happy to advise with the utmost tact.
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Collette Dinnigan
Dinnigan is one of Australia's most successful international designers, and this sugar-coated boudoir of a shop shows why. Her wonderfully slinky designs include beautiful, intricately hand-beaded evening dresses, all made in Sydney. And it's not just for size-6-wearing models, either - 'real' women can enjoy her creations as well.
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Copeland & De Soos
Specialising in late 19th- and 20th-century decorative art and design (think Art-Nouveau and Art-Deco furniture), this charming store also does a nice line in 20th-century jewellery, such as big resin bangles and Scandinavian silver. Service is friendly and knowledgable.
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Corner Shop
This treasure-trove of a boutique is stocked with unique and original foreign goodies like stylishly torn jeans, cosy turtlenecks and wispy things that go 'slink' in the night. It's a good mix of casual and high end (including some excellent second-hand clothes), with some jewellery for good measure.
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Country Road
With hip designer Sophie Holt behind them, Country Road's new products sport a welcome youthful element alongside the old traditional lines. All ages and both sexes are catered to; plenty of CR branches dot the city.
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Cyril's Delicatessen
Run by Czech immigrant Cyril Vincent since 1956, this small, old-style delicatessen offers a large selection (over 4000 different product lines) of imported goodies like jams, cheese, crackers, pickled olives and canned peppers, and his loyal customers love him for it.
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Darren Knight Gallery
This little off-the-beaten-track gallery showcases established and up-and-coming artists from Australia and New Zealand - including Ricky Swallow, whose work hangs in New York's MOMA and the National Gallery of Australia.
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David Jones
Bright and sparkling, this is considered the city's premier department store, straddling two diagonally-opposite buildings. The one on the corner of Castlereagh and Market Sts has menswear, homeware and electrical goods, along with a luxury food hall. The Elizabeth St store sells women's and children's goods. David Jones takes up a sizeable chuck of Westfield Bondi Junction .
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Deus Ex Machina
Literally: 'God is in the machine', this is the perfect example of how big cities allow weird specialisations to flourish. Crammed with classic and custom-made motorcycles, this is 'post-modern motorcyclism' - part workshop, part café, part off-beat boutique.
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Dinosaur Designs
If the Flintstones opened a store, this is what it would look like. Oversized, colourful and chunky resin jewellery competes with vibrantly coloured home accessories (such as salad bowls and vases) that prove your urban coolness. Also in Strand Arcade .
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Dirt Cheap Cds
Missing that hard-to-find fifth Flaming Lips CD, or has your LP of Rolling Stones' Goat's Head Soup finally given up the ghost? This is the place for brand new back-catalogue CDs, most priced around A$10 . There's also a branch at 238 Pitt St in the city.
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Done Art & Design
Ken Done's bright, cartoonish Matisse-on-Prozac images adorn T-shirts, shorts, towels, bathing suits, robes, dresses and any other kind of resort item you can think of. For more, check out his nearby gallery or the outlet store in Market City .
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Dripping Wet
This surf shop also rents surfboards, bodyboards and wetsuits.
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Dymocks
This huge bookstore has more than 250,000 titles spread over three floors; look for the Lonely Planet aisle! Great for almost any book you might be after, plus there's a café. There are several other branches around the city.
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Eva Breuer Art Dealer
This is a well-regarded, friendly gallery stocking a bright selection of modern Australian art. Look for museum-quality works by Grace Cossington Smith, Sidney Nolan, James Coburn, Arthur Boyd and every other big name in the genre. There are works on canvas and paper, plus a selection of artworks for under A$5000.00 .
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Evelyn Miles
Ensconced in the ground floor of the luxurious Stamford Plaza Hotel is this high-end retailer of footwear for women. It's here that credit cards and chiropodists' nightmares merge into one stiletto-heeled fantasy. Join Naomi Watts and Sarah Murdoch as owners of these stylish, colourful and attention-getting shoes.
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Fairfax & Roberts
Downtown Sydney is a hotspot for stand-out jewellers, comin' atcha like Cleopatra. Fairfax & Roberts is classy, classy, classy. A night at the opera?
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Faster Pussycat
Inspired by 'trash pop culture, hot rods and rock and roll' this cool cat coughs up clothing for all genders and ages (including baby punkwear) in several shades of Newtown black.
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Folkways
The excellent and long-standing Folkways is easily one of Sydney's best places to stock up on imported CDs and DVDs from around the globe. Especially strong are the world music, jazz, classical and pop genres. Friendly, knowledgable staff can ease any decision dilemmas, and they'll do special orders (and ship internationally) on hard-to-find items.
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Fragile
The cutest in pampering kidswear can be found at this darling shop, which stocks a brilliant array of designer duds like Oilily and Petit Bateau. For mums, there's a good selection of Paul Smith and Diesel maternitywear, along with some spiffy papooses. Find it by the parked prams and coddled babies out the front.
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Frolic
You'll find funky tees, sunnies, hats and vintage frocks in this store specialising in 1950s to 1980s secondhand men's and women's clothes, as well as stocking several local brands. Masquerade as a local with a Newtown Jets T-shirt.
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Gavala Aboriginal Art Centre
Proudly proclaiming itself as Sydney's only Aboriginal-owned retail centre and gallery, this is a great place to source everything from a T-shirt to a bark painting, a boomerang or an Aboriginal flag.
