In 1994 Megan Kinney opened her first MEG shop in NYC’s East Village. Her locally manufactured, independently-owned fashion label is designed and operated exclusively by women, and sales often go to support causes that affect the lives of women and girls here at home and also abroad. The shop on N 6th Street in Williamsburg, also serves as Meg’s design studio, so patterns for future garments hang along side current collections—giving the space the warmth and appeal of an artists’ workshop. And it’s not uncommon to discover Meg, a ray of Brooklyn-sunshine, herself working away or chatting with her adoring customers. MEG’s enthusiastic staff will always go to great lengths to make you feel like you’re buying a custom garment. Their trained eyes make certain that every seam sits in just the right place or off to their tailor it goes—and POOF! suddenly you have a little taste of local couture in your closet.

Moss is a store that always inspires me, mixing conceptual art and design. I could spend ages in there looking at the ideas or how designers’ executed these products. Almost everything in the store is one of a kind.

Grand Central is big and beautiful and it also periodically hosts free cultural events - poets at typewriters custom-composing poems on demand - or Alvin Ailey dancers performing in Artist, Nick Cave's horse suits!

Books are Magic is a great local spot for bookworms. The staff is warm and friendly with regular events happening monthly. 

The Performing Garage is an Off-Off-Broadway theater in SoHo, New York City. Established in 1968, it is the permanent home of the experimental theater company originally named The Performance Group that morphed in 1980 into The Wooster Group, and their primary performance venue.