Marfa is Texas’s Surprising Shopping Mecca

For a town with only one traffic light, Marfa, Texas, has much to recommend it: flat-topped volcanic mountains, rippling desert grasses, watercolor sunsets in skies of unbelievable scale, and—since the minimalist artist Donald Judd rolled into town more than half a century ago—blue-chip contemporary art. In recent years, this remote West Texas outpost, which has a population hovering around 1,700, has also become an unlikely shopping destination, with an emphasis on one-of-a-kind wares from the local artists who’ve made their homes here.

Granted, the most famous store in Marfa is neither a store nor in Marfa: Prada Marfa, a permanent art installation that’s about 30 minutes outside of town, has welcomed selfie-takers since before the advent of Instagram. But for retail you can do more than photograph, you can do worse than spending an afternoon on Highland Avenue, Marfa’s main shopping drag. Our first stop was the fun and funny Wrong, which sells high-end curios like neon-painted horseshoes and wooden sculptures of tequila bottles, locally made jewelry, photographs, paintings, collages, and even quirky hangable quilts. Behind the counter, above a beautifully arranged tangle of Mexican folk-art candelabras, the hand-lettered sign announcing “We Ship Every F**king Day” aptly captures the irreverent spirit of the place.

A few steps down Highland is the similarly excellent Raba Marfa. Billing itself as a purveyor of “high desert vintage,” Raba contains a selection of second-hand clothing—think Carolina Herrera dresses, old Levis in every shade of blue, and Rush concert tees from the early 1980s. But there’s plenty of new items on offer as well: clothing from L.A. brand le Bon Shoppe, sunglasses from Austin-based Vada, perfumes, candles, and locally made jewelry. (Marfa might have the highest jeweler per capita ratio of any town I’ve ever visited).

Another can’t-miss stop on Highland is Garza Marfa, a homeware mecca featuring bright striped textiles–on pillows and blankets and tablecloths and totes–made by the artist-owners. There are sundry other objets as well–vases, barstools, side plates with cactus illustrations, even toilet-paper holders–for the perfectly bespoke home. As in so many stores here, almost everything for sale at Garza was made by independent artists, and there are capsule biographies of the ceramicist/jeweler/sculptor in question on nearly every table.

Another Highland Avenue highlight is Hotel Paisano, which housed Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson during the 1955 filming of Giant. The hotel gift shop is the place for visitors who can’t go another day without pajamas silkscreened with images of cattle, cowboys, and Prada Marfa. The street even has a bookstore, Stop & Read Books, which is small but—like so much else in Marfa—impeccably curated. (In keeping with the true cowboy spirit of the place, the bookshop also sells canned matcha lattes, blueberry sparkling teas, and THC-enhanced cherry-hibiscus sodas.)

Off this main drag are some excellent stand-alone stores, like Marfa Mood Mercantile, which lets customers vote on which animal shelter they’d like to donate to, and Commonplace Marfa, which sells hipster Western wear, cool vintage jackets, and—you guessed it—locally made jewelry. Visitors pressed for time might consider a trip to Dean Street, which has another good concentration of stores, including  Marfa Brand Soap Company, with locally made soaps with names like “Ranch Road” and “Campfire,” and Cobra Rock, where the owners hand-tool their own line of beautiful cowboy boots.

Drive a few minutes out of town and it’s easy to see why Cormac McCarthy set No Country for Old Men around here. But inside the expertly curated stores of Marfa, I kept forgetting that I was three hours from the nearest airport, in one of the loneliest corners of the country. I was too busy wondering whether I could possibly justify spending $65 on hand-dyed batik placemats.