Brooklyn boutiques: the 13 best, Greenpoint to Red Hook
Williamsburg has the most shops, but the best afternoon is Smith Street and Court Street: four shops, a 13 minute walk, all open noon to 6 pm.
The best boutiques in Brooklyn run from Greenpoint to Red Hook, and 27 of the 38 we list are outside Williamsburg. The founder of one of the 13 below was priced out of SoHo, and her old space became a Stella McCartney store.
She is Tiffany, and at 22 she moved her shop from Chicago to SoHo, next door to Louis Vuitton, her site says. Priced out, she started again in Bushwick, selling $10 clothes from trucks across from Roberta's pizzeria, which the site calls the first mobile vintage shops in the United States.
Brooklyn is where New York's shops start, or start over. If you have one afternoon, give it to Smith Street and Court Street: vintage, independent labels, rentals and The Row, in four shops on a 13 minute walk. All four are open noon to 6 pm daily.
Quick facts
- Shops: 38 independent boutiques in Brooklyn, 11 in Williamsburg, 13 below
- One afternoon: 4 shops on Smith and Court Streets, 0.6 miles or 13 minutes on foot
- Hours: 10 of the 13 open daily, and 2 close Mondays
- Ratings: 4.0 to 5.0 on Google across 10 of the 13, read 20 September 2026
- Prices: a median of $68 at Article& and $48 at Rue Saint Paul, on their sites, read 27 September 2026
For vintage and secondhand
The trucks left no room to hang out, so Tiffany opened 28 Scott Vintage at 108 Thames Street. It is open until 8 pm, the latest here.
The owner of Unearth Vintage and her mom, first generation immigrants from Eastern Europe, pick its stock, the shop says. At 159 Smith Street, steps from the Bergen Street stop, every piece from the 1940s to the early 2000s carries a handwritten tag with its date, fabric and condition.
Front General Store began as a stall at the Brooklyn Flea and moved to 143 Front Street in Dumbo in 2012. Look for military deadstock and vintage Levi's. It reopened in March 2026 with extra fitting rooms "so you never feel rushed" and, the shop adds, "quite literally, better air conditioning."
After ten years in finance, Kelly Wang founded Rue Saint Paul in 2018, naming it for the Paris street where she once lived. Her Carroll Gardens shop at 313 Court Street opened in February 2020 and sells new and secondhand clothes. Rentals are $50 a week, dry cleaning included, and picked up in person, to cut shipping waste, it explains.
For independent labels
Tommy Cole and Roy Caires opened Alter in February 2007, in what their site calls a very quiet location on Franklin Street in Greenpoint. It started with a little vintage and a few independent designers and now carries nearly 100 brands at number 140. The owners call it an independent, LGBTQ, family owned business.
Article& explains its name on its site: an article of clothing, and then the ampersand. Twenty years in, it sells independent designers, smaller labels and basics at 198 Smith Street, with Levi's from $45 to $109. "We won't hover," it promises.
Cloth, 138 Fort Greene Place, has sold designer clothes for women since 2004, by its own account. A Closed alpaca cardigan in pink sorbet is $380 on its site, beside knits from Lilla P. It opens at noon daily, and the G's Fulton Street stop has an exit on its street, by the MTA's map.
At 369 Court Street, Ven.Space lists 62 labels on its site, Auralee, Lemaire and The Row among them (one is its own, Ven. 11231, the shop's ZIP code).
Alice Cheng opened A. CHENG in the East Village in 2001, then took it to Brooklyn: 460 Bergen Street, a minute from the 2 and 3 trains. It calls its clothes minimalist, in wool, cotton and linen, and stocks Rachel Comey and Apiece Apart.
For coffee first
Both Bed-Stuy shops pour coffee with the clothes. Sincerely, Tommy, 343 Tompkins Avenue, opens at 8 am with an in house coffee bar and womenswear from emerging labels, and calls itself a lifestyle store.
The artist Christophe Roberts opened SEED Brklyn, 1217 Bedford Avenue, in 2022, with a Japanese inspired sneaker laundry, Time Out reported. Its launch release promised to "nurture some of Brooklyn's brightest and emerging creatives." Today it calls itself a cafe, boutique and art gallery, with a Telfar section online, and it closes Mondays.
For something made in New York
Christine Alcalay, 316 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, sells her own label and closes Mondays. She writes that fashion was "what my mother did to ensure a future for us in a new country after leaving Vietnam." "We ate, slept and lived with heaps of clothing around us."
Her clothes are made in small New York factories, in runs as small as 20 to 30 pieces.
Red Hook is last: Erie Basin opened at 388 Van Brunt Street in 2006, its site says, and its owner, Russell Whitmore, sells antique jewelry back to the Georgian era.
Since 2014 he has also designed EB, made in New York, with many pieces built around antique gemstones he collected. The shop calls itself largely a one man show: he sits in the shop, takes every photograph and does all the buying.
Getting there, and when to go
The G never goes to Manhattan, which is why it is Brooklyn's boutique line.
Take the G. The MTA's map runs it from Court Square in Queens to Church Avenue in Brooklyn: 21 stops, none in Manhattan. Six of these 13 shops are six minutes or less on foot from a G stop.
Otherwise, the L stops at Morgan Avenue for 28 Scott, the A and C at Nostrand Avenue for SEED, and the F at York Street for Front General.
Red Hook is "not particularly well served by public transportation," Erie Basin's directions admit. The subway is 25 minutes on foot, so its site suggests the B61 bus or the NYC Ferry. It opens weekdays by appointment, with walk ins next on Saturday 10 October, noon to 5 pm.
Go Tuesday to Sunday, when 12 of the 13 are open.
Unearth's family came from Eastern Europe, Christine Alcalay's mother from Vietnam, and Tiffany from Chicago, by way of SoHo. All three found their shopfronts in Brooklyn.
Common questions
Is Brooklyn good for shopping?
Yes, for independent boutiques: this guide lists 38 in Brooklyn, 11 in Williamsburg. For one afternoon, walk Smith Street and Court Street, where four shops open noon to 6 pm daily. Our Williamsburg page and Williamsburg shopping guide cover those 11.
What is the best shopping street in Brooklyn?
For boutiques, Smith Street, with Court Street one block over: between them, 5 of the 38 shops in this guide. Grand Street in Williamsburg has 4.
Where to vintage shop in Brooklyn?
Smith Street first: Unearth Vintage at number 159 sells clothes from the 1940s to the early 2000s, with jeans in 24 to 44 inch waists. It is 4.9 on Google from 457 reviews. Then Front General Store in Dumbo and 28 Scott Vintage in Bushwick; our best vintage stores in NYC guide covers the rest.