We flew to Phnom Penh from Bangkok to do a story for an Asian travel magazine for a section called The Buzz, which meant we had to cover places that hummed – the best, busiest, most talked-about spots in the city. These are the chicest boutiques in Phnom Penh right now and here’s the best way to shop them.
Many of the Cambodian capital’s best boutiques are home-grown. Some are Cambodian owned, like Ambre (my favourite), ran by French-Cambodian designer Romyda Keth and her French designer-business partner Thomas Jaffre. Others are owned by expats who are doing an amazing job of giving something back to the country.
The boutiques I’ve chosen are not only the most stylish, they’re following sustainable business practices, supporting skills training, and contributing to the flourishing of Cambodian traditional crafts and artisans, and development of new techniques.
These are my picks of the chicest boutiques in Phnom Penh in a logical itinerary you can follow on foot. Just don’t wear heels!
YOUR PHNOM PENH SHOPPING ITINERARY
START on boutique-lined 240 Street, an increasingly cool address that’s fun to explore. You can easily spend a few hours making your way from one end to the other if you stop to browse the boutiques, refuel, and even have a nibble or glass of wine on the way.
At the top of the street, diagonally opposite The 240 boutique hotel and Natura cafe is Elsewhere, a boutique selling colourful resort wear made for the Tropics – mint sun dresses, turquoise blouses, bright bikinis, and bags and hats for the beach and pool. Incidentally, it has a sister-branch called Elsewhere 2, on 278 Street, which has a pool and lounge bar; the boutique is upstairs.
Stroll down the street a bit to visit McMillan and New Zealander Kellianne Karatau’s boutique Jasmine, which boasts elegant and very feminine silk and satin frocks, in bold shades of fuschia, turquoise, spearmint, orange, and apricot.
Next, drop into Australian Cassandra McMillan’s shop Bliss, which has beautiful cool cotton and linen kaftans, shirts and skirts, handmade quilts and cushions, as well as a spa on site.
After, take a wander around French-owned Waterlily, where Christine Gauthier sells her handmade jewellery created from buttons, electrical cables, resin, and rice bags, and New Yorker Elizabeth Kiester’s Wanderlust, which has vibrant smock-dresses, pastel-coloured shirt dresses and cute clutch purses.
(Handily, next door to Wanderlust is Cambodian-New Zealander Kethana Dunnet’s popular restaurant Sugar Palm, where you can refuel. We’ll be reviewing this in our Eating Out guide).
Street 240 is also home to The Shop, which produces delectable Belgian-style chocolates on site made with Cambodian ingredients, and The Red Apron, arguably the best wine store in town, which also holds themed wine tasting nights.
Take a left turn at The Red Apron onto Street 19 and walk until you reach Street 178, known as ‘Art Street’. Although note that aside from the well-regarded Reyum Gallery, there is little in the way of quality art here, however, there’s a lot of kitsch stuff: shop after shop sells paintings of garish sunsets over rice fields and portraits of Apsara dancers. There are, however, more gorgeous shops to browse here.
Spicy Green Mango oozes bohemian-style with hippy-style cotton tops and flirty skirts with interesting detailing like hand-sewn decorative buttons and patchwork appliqués.
There is also a branch of Gardens of Desire from Siem Reap, which is the place to buy beautiful one-of-a-kind jewellery with stories to tell.
At the opposite end of the fashion spectrum and the far end of the street is the city’s most beautiful boutique of all, Ambre. Here, designer Romyda Keth has filled the two-storey fairy-tale emporium with heavenly 1940s-Hollywood-inspired dresses and gowns.
You’ve probably worked up a sweat by now, so jump into a tuk-tuk or head directly back to Sisowath Quay, where just beneath the Foreign Correspondent’s Club (FCC), Kellianne Karatau, who co-owns Jasmine, has opened a delightful little shop on her own called Orange River, crammed with exquisite silk dresses, shirts, blouses, and scarfs, and beautiful screen-printed silk bags, purses and cushions.
FINISH upstairs, at the FCC for a well-deserved drink.
UPDATE: Wanderlust has now closed and more shops have opened on both Streets 178 and 240. We’ll be updating this in early 2015.
I LOVE the colors!
Yeah, it was nice to see there wasn’t much black in the shops. Seems colour is the new black in Phnom Penh.
How wonderful!!!I think it’s another world with so many colors!
If you were looking for chic boutiques, Siem Reap was easier to spot as they were all in the same downtown area. But I loved Phnom Phen. I’d find the coolest & most hip looking joints down in the most unexpected streets. I’m sure then, it must’ve Art Street that I was on- some of these names and designs ring a bell! Cambodia is so surprising!
And the thing is, when you travel to those places you feel like wearing colour. In big cities everyone seems to wear black. It’s depressing to return to after being in places like Phnom Penh.
We went to Siem Reap after Phnom Penh actually – so those stories are coming up next :) And like Phnom Penh, we were in Siem Reap to do a similar story – on boutique hotels, restaurants, bars, cafes, shops, art galleries, etc – but for a different magazine, so expect more of the same, only different, if you know what I mean! :) Agree re Cambodia, loved both cities – very cool little places. Need to return though, and get out of the cities next time.
Really enjoyed Phnom Penh and there are some beautiful dresses, particularly evening wear which is simply stunning and I agree with your choices. And yes i did buy some. I also like the fact that day wear for the Cambodians are PJ’s. They are very good people and resilient.
We are actually back in Phnom Penh at the moment so I can confirm that there are even more beautiful shops with lovely dresses here now. A hotel manager was just telling us too how one of the most popular things for his guests to do is shop – they usually do Phnom Penh at the end of a trip and by then they’ve had enough temples and enough beach and the women just want to shop, returning to the hotel each day with lots of bags. I think the affordability of beautiful things is too hard to resist.
Yes, you see lots of women wearing very colourful printed PJs here – and in Vietnam too. Very cute. And, agree, the Cambodians are indeed very resilient people – very special people.