Travel Tips

Haight Street has long been known, along with LA's Melrose, as one of THE places to go shopping for new and less-than-new duds. While boutiques come and go, there are several that have withstood the test of time. I will limit these picks to general clothing... I won't, for example, be talking about shoes - which warrants a whole other chapter (Haight Street is often disparagingly referred to as "The Shoe District"). All the places in this travelogue are on Haight Street between Masonic and Stanyan Streets - about a 4 block walk.

Starting at masonic and heading west, right on the corner, is Aardvark. This place is more on the wild side than some of the other biggies - in additon to the basics you'll also find boas, hats, and strange things the other places don't have - every once in a while they get things in that are truly unique - like this awesome 49er mini-skirt!

Simply THE place to go for that hard to find mylar dress, black PVC jumpsuit, or leggings that say "SLUT" all over them. Boas in every color of the rainbow. Here you can find things to spice up your bedroom - or douse it in a thick layer of pepper! Calling this place a "fetish" store doesn't do it justice; it's a LOT more fun than that. "Fetish" stores are so humorless. You can't go in this place and not laugh.

I don't remember the name of this place but you CAN'T miss it... it's right on the corner of Haight & Ashbury. If you're looking for a Haight Street/Tie Dye/Grateful Dead/ sort of shirt, you'll find it here. But what makes this place truly unique is it's awesome collection of vintage baseball shirts - from the old Pacific League (lots of SF Seals stuff) to Negro League to New York Borough teams!

A former Chinese market that, back in the 80's, became what was, at the time, the biggest used clothing store in the Haight. In addition to a large selection of basics, they have an outstanding costime selection and a larger than usual selection of costume jewelry and other doodads. Their window displays are always top notch! Say hi to Susan, an awesome lady and a real SF icon - she's the one in the cat-eye glasses.

Held Over is located 2 doors down from the ever- crowded Buffalo Exchange - knon more for the fact that they buy used clothing than sell it. Definitely worth checking out as well!

This relative newcomer is a Southern California transplant - I'm almost positive there's one on Melrose. Lots of basics and a good deal of used leather. This is another pace that buys as well as sells, so it's often crowded. The exterior of the shop is a work of art. Good art or bad art? You decide...

The upshot to all of us doing our banking on ATMs nowadays is that cool old banks can get turned into clothing stores! This is actually the Villians annex - the original store (housing a good selection of fetishy stuff) being located right accross the street.

And finally, one of the oiginals - not doing as well as it was in its' hayday, but still hanging in there. Right next door is Escape From New York, which not only has decent pizza (get the pesto) but has a very interesting collection of autographed photos of surprisingly famous people who've eaten there.