In the mid-1800s, as the last civilized stop on the way out West, Kansas City welcomed wagon trains and riverboats with provisions, pickaxes, and camaraderie. Shoppers still come here in droves, although today they show up for style rather than mere sustenance.
In fact, several times a year entire busloads of ladies disembark at the shopper’s paradise known as Kansas City. Shoppers from hundreds of miles away make annual, sometimes quarterly, pilgrimages to our city-sized antiques centers, enormous outlet malls, and one-of-a-kind emporiums such as Nell Hill’s in nearby Atchison, Kansas.
Of course, the high-winter holidays wouldn’t be the same without a visit to the Country Club Plaza, our 14-block extravaganza of retail stores and entertainment with 250,000 glowing Christmas lights outlining every building, spire, and arch.
And for those who enjoy one-of-a-kind shops rather than big-name stores that could be in any city in North America, there’s the Crossroads Arts District, a vibrant neighborhood with more than 80 art galleries, boutiques, and showrooms, all within a mile walking radius. We’ll give you the full tour in this chapter’s Shopping Districts section, but we’ve also singled out a few shops in cross-referenced categories, such as antiques.
Our shopping opportunities are so stupendous that when people call us a sports town, they’re often referring to the action in the aisles, not the stadiums. Our renowned buying power and sophisticated lifestyle have naturally attracted giant retailers, often for their first forays into the Midwest. Examples include Nordstrom, Ralph Lauren, and Crate and Barrel. And where these giants go, smaller exclusive boutiques and stores such as Armani, St. John Knits, Dean & Deluca, MAC Cosmetics, and Apple follow, giving us enough cachet to be considered the heartland’s Rodeo Drive.
And don’t overlook the dozens of one-of-a-kind shops you’ll find only in Kansas City. Asiatica creates exquisite garments from antique kimonos, and Retro Inferno sells designer furniture from the 1930s to 1970s in prime condition, just right for that so-in loft look. Both shops were “discovered” by collectors in New York and Los Angeles before their own hometown. Ditto for local artists Markus Pierson, whose famous Coyote series is owned by the rich and famous, and his wife, Sherl Pierson, whose collages grace the homes of Whoopi Goldberg and Sir Elton John. The Piersons’ work can be acquired through Blue Gallery. Metal sculptor Tom Corbin counts Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks, and Alec Baldwin as fans, and Joscelyn Himes (www.jhtextiles.com), whose studio and shop is in the Crossroads Arts District, creates ethereal fabrics for the design collections of Bill Blass, Donna Karan, and Vera Wang.
The shops in this chapter are grouped by category of goods and then listed alphabetically. All the shops are in Kansas City, Missouri, unless otherwise noted.
Many of these special places are unadvertised, and several are off the beaten path. When the shopkeepers ask how in the world you discovered them, just say an Insider gave you the scoop. So put on those comfortable shoes, grab that credit card, and let’s go shopping!
Kansas City: the art capital of the world. Well, darn close anyway. When you factor in our museums, art spaces and galleries, orchestras, musical groups and soloists, and millions of dollars of public artwork like fountains, sculptures, and murals—well, it’s enough to make any city seem downright highbrow. And the phrase “All the world’s a stage” may well have been coined for Kansas City; we have more professional theaters than any other city our size in the United States. With more than 320 cultural organizations, our town is an exciting destination and, more important, a great place to live, work, and raise a family.
You can attribute our amazing cache of culture to early philanthropists like William Rockhill Nelson, who decided his adopted hometown deserved boulevards and a world-class art museum, and J. C. Nichols, who gave us enough fountains to make even Rome seem second-rate. That city may boast more fountains, but we have more that actually work.
Current-day angels with names like Hall, Helzberg, Bloch, Kemper, and Kauffman keep the “home is where the art is” tradition going. And now they, along with thousands of musicians and singers, artists, writers, poets, and dancers who call Kansas City home, would like to share the wealth with you.
The listings in this chapter are presented in alphabetical order by category. All organizations are located in Kansas City, Missouri, unless otherwise noted.