El Paso Itineraries
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Funky Downtown Shopping
El Paso is no less culturally unique than New Orleans, or San Francisco, or Nantucket Island. Nowhere else in the world do the United States and Mexico collide to produce the singular mix we enjoy in El Paso. And downtown El Paso is the epitome of this synthesis.

    “You go to any mall in America, and what you see is the same thing. You don’t even know what community you’re in,” says Tanny Berg. Berg is the founder of the Central Business Association, an organization of downtown merchants. “Downtown El Paso is unique, a natural intermingling of two cultures.”

Downtown El Paso is where the United States and Mexico meet to do business. Downtown merchants “take care of tourists from both sides,” Berg says. This diverse clientele has produced a singular marketplace of unique merchandise. Chihuahua, our neighboring Mexican state, enjoys a big cattleman reputation like Texas. Vaqueros, they call them there. And downtown El Paso has what it takes to meet the sartorial demands of the most demanding cowboy. How about a five thousand dollar cowboy hat? Starr Western Wear, 124 Overland, at the corner of Oregon and Overland, has a 1000X Stetson with a diamond-hat band, in a glass case like fine jewelry. And in the storeroom, or perhaps a vault, they have them in every size and in three colors. Or try the Montecarlo 10000X El Meromero, with a manta ray hatband, for $799.95. If your tastes are more pedestrian, you can pick up a Larry Mahan 5000X El Tesoro for a paltry $479.95. But don’t be dissuaded by the prices. Stetsons start at $29.95. And the friendly staff is happy to block your hat, if you want a custom crease in your crown or a bend in your brim.


    They also sell every other article of western wear, from rodeo jeans to saucer-sized belt buckles to double-yoked snap-pocket shirts. And if you want to outfit your little buckaroo, Starr Western Wear offers a complete line of children’s wear, and with their little blue jeans and cowboy shirts, it‘s a cinch the little tykes will be playing rodeo with the family pets in no time.
    But El Paso’s not all about cowboys and vaqueros. Pachucos, famous for their flamboyant style, originated here, and you can still get their trademark zoot suits, with the long tails and the peg-leg pants, in El Paso at the cubby hole haberdashery Sinbad’s El Rancho Fashion, 114 South Mesa. They also sell western suits and traditional Mexican guayaberas, those four-pocket embroidered shirts, as do several other stores in downtown El Paso, among them Casa Nueva, at 600 1/2 South El Paso.

    Maybe you promised the folks back home t-shirts. A number of shops downtown offer t-shirts with authentic El Paso cultural connotations. Che Guevara and the Hecho en Mexico logo are two popular designs, as well as lowrider and more militant concepts. Rico Mart, at 225 South Stanton, sells t-shirts and Mexican flag beach towels. And the prices are ridiculously low, as cheap as four shirts for $11.

For a little culture, shop the Cinco Puntos Press storefront, at 701 Texas Street. The twenty-year-old publishing concern specializes in multicultural books rooted in El Paso and the border region, with a dedicated concentration in bilingual children’s books. Cinco Puntos published and sells a bilingual edition of The Story of Colors, by the contemporary Mexican revolutionary Subcomandante Marcos. The works of local artists hang on the walls of the intimate bookstore, and they also sell Cactus Mary’s Handmade Soaps, local craft soaps with exotic scents like, for instance, prickly pear, ocotillo flower, mesquite honey, mint, sweet oatmeal, cucumber melon, or lime cilantro with cactus seeds.

 Just down the street from Cinco Puntos, a stolid warehouse holds surprising treasures. Galeria San Ysidro, at 801 Texas Avenue, is a museum of folk art and folk art furniture from around the world. The Galeria sells wooden masks and wooden ships and violins and candlesticks. As you step around a pile of geologically curious ammonite fossils on the floor, and stroll from the wooden masks of the Mexican folk art section to the angular fetishes of the African exhibit, you appreciate the worldly chaotic order in the warehouse. The exotic ambient music tinges the atmosphere with Oriental intrigue and heightens the sense of adventure. For your traveling convenience, Galeria San Ysidro ships anywhere.
    One block east of Galeria San Ysidro, the El Paso Chile Company, at 909 Texas Avenue, offers a gourmet taste of the border. The El Paso Chile Company sells a couple dozen different kinds of dips and salsas to please any palate. Try their Salsa Loca, with three kinds of chile and their house-brand Tequila Nacional, or their award-winning Cuban Black Bean Dip. They don’t even ask you to take their word for how good their salsas are; they offer samples. And that’s just for appetizers. This local business with international distribution also sells freezer buckets for frozen margaritas and cosmopolitans, pre-fab cocktail mix shakers, a wide range of sauces and marinades and condiments like spicy Cowboy Catsup and Rib Rub, and cookbooks to show you how to use them. Get a “Dog Gone But Not Forgotten” doggie treat for that family member you had to leave in the kennel. And the El Paso Chile Company will also ship your purchases anywhere you want.
 Marco’s Watch Company, at the corner of Stanton and San Antonio, claims to have over 6,000 styles of watches, ranging from one dollar to $375, with prices forty percent or more under retail. “We can afford to charge less because our overhead is so low,” says the owner, Berta Sidransky. Consider, perhaps, the fake gold nugget watch with Mexico’s patron saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, on the face. The line between tacky and kitsch is blurry indeed, maybe even nonexistent.
    Sunglasses are more than a fashion accessory in El Paso’s brilliant sunshine. But the problem with sunglasses is their durability. They get lost, or sat on. So why spend a hundred bucks or more on sunglasses, when perfectly functional shades are available downtown for five dollars a pair, or less? Abelito’s Toys, at 505 South El Paso Street, just south of Paisano in the historic Colon Theater building, sells more than 400 styles of sunglasses for $5 each, as well as an ample inventory of metal car miniatures and other toys. Other merchants also offer shades at similar prices. Check out Versailles Mode, in the Caples Building, at Mesa and San Antonio, for their sunglasses “in the style of...” or browse the selections displayed at dozens of other shops throughout downtown.
And once you’ve made it to Abelito’s Toys, a stroll down El Paso Street south of Paisano takes you through a street market bazaar with a panoply of bargains. The bridge at the end of the street links El Paso and Juarez, and many of the pedestrians that stream over the bridge from Juarez do so to shop on South El Paso Street. A number of stores offer low-end knockoffs of the latest fashions, from shoes to cocktail dresses, at ridiculously low-end prices. Sidewalk displays are designed to lure shoppers into the stores, and most transactions take place al fresco. Dollar stores and bargain houses highlight the foibles of currency exchange rates in imperfect markets, and the variety of merchandise illustrates that this is truly a world market and not just a bi-national one.
    Downtown El Paso is a unique and rich cultural treasure where the citizens of two nations mingle and interact in one of man‘s oldest natural preoccupations, commerce. Shopping downtown El Paso gives visitors an opportunity to participate actively in the singular experience that is the border.

Ricardo Wright is an El Paso freelance writer and bon vivant and master's candidate at the University of Texas at El Paso in the Latin American and Border Studies program.
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