To coincide with the launch of the Directory—a superselective guide of where to shop, eat, and prettify oneself in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Milan, and Shanghai—Vogue.com Contributing Editor Rebecca Bengal pays tribute to New York’s Dashwood Books.
Let us now praise the basements, nooks, crannies, and narrow spaces of the East Village, whose architecture has preserved the physical and metaphoric underground of New York, making possible the continued existence of some of the city’s most idiosyncratic shops: tiny stores devoted entirely to selling only vintage guitars, or custom hats, or cappuccinos and tattoos, or Japanese toys, or Mexican handcraft, or...




