20 of the World's Most Beautiful Shops, Chosen by an Expert on Shopkeepers

What makes a great shop different from a good one? Perhaps the storefront is as beautiful as it is old, with faded signs that hint at a long history. Inside there might be a carefully chosen mix of goods or a passion for one special product. And the shopkeeper holds everything together.

Designer Paula Flynn has spent about ten years searching for such shops and writing about them on her website, The Shopkeepers. It is a directory of shops, with guides by type and region and profiles of their owners. Her new book, The World's Most Beautiful Shops, brings her favorites together. She told Condé Nast Traveler that these shops each created a special moment in time that fits the character and heritage of their place. She likes stores that are shaped by where they are, not copies of something from the other side of the world. The magazine shares 20 of her picks, including a 237-year-old candle shop in Lisbon and a townhouse in Istanbul that has become a textile museum.

Here are three examples.

Notary Ceramics and Home is in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Its founder, Sarah Van Raden, first tried ceramics in a college class and rediscovered her love for clay about ten years later in an evening course. Her studio is next to the shop, and it is about ten years old. It sells minimalist pottery, porcelain lamps and bell chimes made by her and other ceramic artists. Visitors may even see her shaping clay on the spot.

James Smith and Sons, in the West End of London, is nicknamed the Umbrella Shop. It has made umbrellas since 1830. The business moved to New Oxford Street in the 1850s, and its decorated Victorian front and interior still have many original details. Flynn says that going in is like walking into a museum. Its umbrellas, parasols and walking sticks are made and repaired in its workshop.

Antigua Casa Crespo opened in Madrid in 1863. At first it sold two things: special rope and black and white espadrilles, a type of light canvas shoe. In the 1970s it began selling colorful shoes, and they did so well that Queen Sofía of Spain visited. The shop, still run by a family, is tiny and stocked from floor to ceiling with espadrilles sorted by color.