Detroit Shopping

If you want to get some cool Detroit souvenirs this is a good place to check out. They have shirts, cards, music and food. One of the stores is located in Fisher Building. Getting to walk through and see the building is a good enough reason to make the trip!

Arts & Crafts style Pewabic Pottery was founded in 1903 and has been in the same building since 1907. In the early 1900’s it was often used in public buildings throughout the U.S. and upscale private residences locally.

What to buy: Currently the Pewabic Society has education programs and classes. They offer architectural tiles, gift tiles, vases, ornaments and jewelry with their trademark iridescent glazes.

Royal Oak has plenty of restaurants and bars, which makes it look something like a urban area, but it is actually something of a shopping desert (unless you are interested in visiting one of several fetish stores). Last time I was here, I tried to find somewhere in downtown Royal Oak to buy a replacement battery for my camera - no luck.

As such, it's good to see a big retailer like Barnes & Noble investing in the place. They've recently opened one of their box stores here - with ample parking nearby. I hope it eventually attracts more shoppers - and shopping - to the area.

Great Lakes Crossing is a gigantic mall in suburban Detroit. The mall itself is a mile-long race-track-shaped structure, which is more like two or three miles long if you go through the stores. With a "food court the size of Utah" and over 200 stores, you definitely cannot go wrong.

While some Detroit malls such as Somerset may seem more like Niagara Falls (pretty to look at from a distance), Great Lakes Crossing is a fantastic, down-to-earth, interactive "Disney World" type megamall experience that is extremely lively and has something for just about everybody on the face of the earth. Stores include Rue 21, Love from Michigan, Rainforest Cafe, Burlington Coat Factory, Bass Pro Outdoor World, and a whole lot more.

What to buy: There is a lot of variety, and many of the stores here cannot be found at most other malls.

What to pay: Varies

This is a large and active mall in Southfield, just north of the border of Detroit. It is home to stores such as Marshall Field's, C'est La Vie, Kay Jewelers, etc.

A unique feature of Northland is its urban/city style. Stores such as Bhogalli Leather, Connektions, Hip Hop University, J. Bees, Max Green's, Sun's Clothing, and Van Dyke's Uptown, etc., all fit this category. Many people make the mistake of seeing "urban" clothes as lower-class, yet this mall tends to break whatever stereotypes there may be.

There are many stores that carry exotic Italian shoes, including City Slickers and Via Roma.

This mall also contains Afrocentric stores such as Truth Bookstore and Ethnic Expressions.

So for urban yet upscale clothes, as well as a number of other unique products, shop at Northland Center Mall!!!

What to buy: The most unique items I'm familiar with in this mall have to be the shoes. You can buy alligator shoes (authentic or imitation-leather) at Via Roma and City Slickers. In addition, City Slickers has shoes made from octopus, ostrich, crocodile, and calfskin.

What to pay: Imitation gator shoes should cost about $80, while the authentic ones cost somewhere between $500 and $1,000. Prices vary from store to store.

For people who like to shop till they get a frantic call from their partners about the limits on the credit card being breached, Detroit and its surroundings offer many options.

Here are a few....

1. Somerset Mall in Troy
2. The factory outlets at Monroe
3. The factory outlets at Kensington
4. The factory outlets at Birch Run