Where To Shop in Baku—Azerbaijan’s Up-And Coming Fashion Destination

Wholesome artisanal crafts

As a community-oriented offshoot of Azerbaijan’s Social Innovations state agency, Abad helps small-scale farmers and folk artists with financial planning and marketing, resulting in a countrywide chain of boutiques. Its Baku outpost is housed in the Haji Bani Bath complex in the Old City—look beyond the typical tourist wares (and Swarovski portraits of national leaders) to find colorful wooden cheeseboards and coasters painted with patterns derived from the country’s flat-woven zilli carpets, alongside quirky socks printed with motifs of baklava and shekerbura pastries. The Handicraft concept store on Neftchilar Avenue stocks ceramics, leather goods, and photo prints by local artists. Keep an eye out for its collection of felt slippers and embroidered vests crafted from natural-dyed wool by Pirsah, a charitable women’s collective from nearby Pirsagi village.

Gazelli House, a residential building with two boutiques and an underground wellness center, is the Azerbaijani answer to New York’s Soho House.

Chris Schalkx

Hipster hub

Think of Gazelli House, which encompasses two boutiques, a café, and a subterranean wellness center, set in an unassuming residential building (with a second outpost in London’s South Kensington), as the Azerbaijani answer to New York‘s Soho House. Membership isn’t required, but it has become a hush-hush hang-out for Baku’s in-crowd, who you’ll find sipping post-yoga oat milk lattes in the courtyard or brunching on Mediterranean-tinged salads at the glasshouse-like café. Founded by Baku-born genetic scientist Zarifa Hamzayeva in 1999, the Gazelli Group started life as a cosmetics producer, with a wide range of pomegranate-scented hand creams, face masks, and serums made from the brand’s patented White Oil on the shelves of the wellness boutique out front. The same shop also stocks healing crystals and bespoke tea blends with black tea from plantations around southern Azerbaijan’s Lankaran region. The adjoining Soroka store specializes in homeware and accessories from around the world, including Jonathan Adler vases and cutesy ceramic cups sourced in Morocco.