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Sydney's shops vary from those with international cachet to Aboriginal art galleries, opal shops, craft bazaars, and weekend flea markets. If you're interested in buying genuine Australian products, look carefully at the labels. Stuffed koalas and didgeridoos made anywhere but in Australia are a standing joke.
Aboriginal art includes historically functional items, such as boomerangs, wooden bowls, and spears, as well as paintings and ceremonial implements that testify to a rich culture of legends and dreams. Although much of this artwork remains strongly traditional in essence, the tools and colors used in Western art have fired the imaginations of many Aboriginal artists. Works on canvas are now more common than works on bark. Much of the best work of Arnhem Land and the Central Desert Region (close to Darwin and Alice Springs, respectively) finds its way into Sydney galleries.
Australia has a virtual monopoly on the world's supply of opals. The least expensive of these fiery gemstones are triplets, which consist of a thin shaving of opal mounted on a plastic base and covered by a plastic, glass, or quartz crown. Doublets are a slice of mounted opal without the capping. The most expensive stones are solid opals, which cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. You can pick up opals at souvenir shops all over the city, but if you want a valuable stone you should visit a specialist. Sydney is also a good hunting ground for other jewelry, from the quirky to the gloriously expensive.
The city's largest department store maintains a reputation for excellent service and high-quality goods. Clothing by many of Australia's finest designers is on display here, and the store also sells its own fashion label at reasonable prices.
This should be the first stop for serious bush adventurers heading for wild Australia and beyond. Maps, books, and mounds of gear are tailored especially for the Australian outdoors.
This is a splendid Victorian-era building with more than 200 boutiques, cafés, and antiques shops. The building is open 24 hours, so you can window-shop even after the stores have closed. Guided history tours, which run 45 minutes, cost A$15 and depart 11:30 am Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Book at the concierge on the ground floor.
The place to go for riding boots, Akubra hats, Drizabone raincoats, and moleskin trousers—the type of clothes worn by Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman in the movie Australia.
This ornate three-story shopping arcade built in 1891 runs between George Street and Pitt Street Mall and is one of Sydney's most elegant shopping strips. Beautiful Victorian-era floor tiles, magnificent cedar staircases, and charmingly old-fashioned shopfronts help make the shopping here refreshingly chain-store free. The upstairs galleries are home to high-end Australian fashion designers and jewelers, while the ground floor has a charming mix of cozy specialty tea and cake shops, beauty and gift stores, and fashion boutiques. Strand Hatters is the best men's hat store in the city and the place to buy an Akubra or fedora. The arcade is bookended by two of the country's iconic chocolate stores—Haigh's Chocolates at George Street and Koko Black on Pitt Street—and both are virtually irresistible.
This is a large, bright, browser's delight, and the place to go for literature, pop culture, avant-garde, and art books. They also hold book readings and other literary events.
This institution for music lovers has an especially strong selection of jazz, blues, African, and Latin American music in multiple formats, including vinyl and super audio CDs, as well as an authoritative staff ready to lend some assistance.
The fashion here stands somewhere between Ralph Lauren and Timberland, with an all-Australian assembly of classic, countrified his 'n' hers, plus an ever-expanding variety of soft furnishings in cotton and linen for the rustic retreat. You'll find Country Road clothes in most department stores, but the biggest range is here in this flagship store.
This fun store sells luminous bowls, plates, and vases, as well as fanciful jewelry crafted from resin and Perspex in eye-popping colors. There's another location at 339 Oxford Street in Paddington.
This big, bustling bookstore is packed to its gallery-level coffee shop and is the place to go for all literary needs.
The clothing here is located somewhere close to Diesel-land in the fashion spectrum, with a variety of clothing, footwear, and accessories for the fashion-conscious. Serious shoppers should look for the Marcs Made in Italy sublabel for that extra touch of class.
Buy clothing and accessories by Australian and international designers at this department store opposite the Queen Victoria Building.
The jewelers here order their exquisite material from pearl farms near the remote Western Australia town of Broome. Prices start high and head for the stratosphere, but if you're serious about a high-quality pearl, this gallery requires a visit.
Here you'll find an outstanding collection of high-quality Australian gemstones, including dazzling black opals, pink diamonds, and pearls from Broome.
The heart of Sydney's shopping area includes the Mid-City Centre, the huge Westfield Sydney Shopping Centre, Skygarden, Myer, and the charming and historic Strand Arcade—five multilevel shopping plazas crammed with more than 500 shops, from mainstream clothing stores to designer boutiques.
Just a short walk away is the iconic David Jones store on Elizabeth Street.
Come here for serious one-off designs at the cutting edge of lapidary chic.
This is the only Sydney opal retailer with total ownership of its entire production process—mines, workshops, and showroom—making prices very competitive. In the Pitt Street showroom, you can prearrange to see artisans at work cutting and polishing the stones or visit the on-site museum and learn about the process of opal development and opalized fossils.
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