Downtown Dallas largely has been eviscerated of shopping outlets as inhabitants flocked to the suburbs. Only Neiman Marcus, the mother of all Dallas purveyors of luxury goods, has stayed put. The West End MarketPlace was carved out of an old candy and cracker warehouse to draw hungry tourists and get things going downtown. The real high-volume shopping is done north of downtown, in Uptown as well as Highland Park, North Dallas (north of LBJ Fwy.), and suburbs like Plano and Carrollton.

In the area real-estate agents have designated Uptown, a vintage trolley line travels along McKinney Avenue, allowing shoppers to jump off to duck into its many antiques shops, art galleries, restaurants, and specialty shops. The streets Knox and Henderson, bisected by Central Expressway, are lined with home furnishing stores and antiques dealers, with an eclectic decoration shop or two mixed in. Routh and Fairmount streets have a large number of art galleries and antiques shops. Greenville Avenue is home to a dizzying array of funky shops, including antiques dealers and vintage clothing stores. The avenue gets a little funkier the farther south you travel, with Lower Greenville in particular home to plenty of bars and restaurants that make great pit stops. Deep Ellum, which rules the alternative night, is loaded by day with funky furnishings stores, art galleries, folk art shops, and vintage resale shops. Of course locals head straight for the malls, and if you're in Dallas doing some big-volume shopping, you might do the same; the best are listed here.