So! Johannesburg: It has a terrible reputation, which is a lie! A lie. We love Johannesburg. This is not to say that it does not have a crime problem—it does—but here is our experience: While in Johannesburg, we personally left behind—in a gym, a bar, and a baggage carousel: an iPod, a $400 digital audio recorder, and our passport. (The last one approximately fifteen minutes after getting off the plane, which was particularly brilliant.) Each one of them was returned. It is an amazing, friendly place, and one that is well worth visiting.

Moving on to the shopping: Johannesburg has a great shopping scene—better than Cape Town’s, even, as long as you avoid the malls, as the French Connection / Gap / Zara / etc issue is so strong. Maybe we like it so much because it is such a perfect marriage of New York City (energy, atmosphere, etc.) and New Jersey (malls). Whatever our motivation: These are our five favorite shopping destinations in Joburg. Spend freely!

1. Tiaan Nagel
This is the shop we spent the most money at, the entire time we were in Joburg. (See our longer review here.) If we’re going on a night out, and, say, we’ve worn everything in our suitcase a thousand times, this is be our first stop, because: loads of cute stuff, and none of it super expensive. (The black, super-ruched top we took home was $50.) Also liking: the silk-screened graphic tees. Bonus: friendliest staff we’ve encountered basically anywhere, around the world. Highly recommended!
Tiaan Nagel, at 44 Stanley, +27 11 482 5012

2. Dokter and Misses
This is one of our favorite designer’s shops anywhere. We bought a poster by the Zimbabwean artist Kudzi Chiurai, but we also liked the graphic postcards designed by D+M’s Katy Taplin, and the steel, diamond-cut pieces, both in table and seating form, are super excellent. This is probably the only bad picture of the store ever taken, but don’t hold it against them.
Dokter and Misses, at 44 Stanley

3. Objekt
South Africa has a million amazing designers—”amazing” being one of the very few words in our vocabulary, apparently—and there are loads of cute, crafty, South African-y things here. (We also love that this shop is next to a Nando’s,  a Woolworth, and Moema’s, which covers basically all of our nutrition needs.) We especially liked the cut-out Joburg skyline “keyrack,” though we’re pretty sure we would hang mittens from it, or something. Our number-one choice for South African bring-home gifts that are not related to elephants or baskets.
Objekt, 32 Seventh Avenue, Parktown North, +27 11 447 6005

4. Cabinet @ Co-Op
The reason this photo does not suck, unlike the rest of them on this page, is because we took it from the Co-Op website. Co-Op is the gallery; Cabinet is the super-cool mini-shop next door, curated by a whole bunch of fashion scenesters. Definitely try to stop by one of the gallery’s openings—super fun, super cool crowd, and the extremely tight curation makes for lots of worthy options in a small space. Less time-a-wasting, etc.
Cabinet @ Co-Op, 68 Juta Street, Braamfontein, +27 11 023 0336

5. Gallery Row in Rosebank
That is not an official name, but it is quite an amazing thing: a collection of galleries along Jan Smuts Avenue in Johannesburg, making for something like an actual street culture. A top recommendation—definitely stop at the David Krut bookstore and gallery, Maker, and Gallery on the Square (which just moved from the titular square and represents quite possibly our favorite South African artist, Joshua Miles). Given a bag full of gold coins, we would have bought the Joshua Miles woodcut at Gallery on the Square or the William Kentridge World Cup poster. As it was, we got a plastic container of mango at the Woolworth’s next door.
From around 140 Jan Smuts Avenue in Parkwood