Shopping in Wichita

The staff at First Gear raises up runners with personalized care and name-brand gear. Experienced runners themselves, they perform a free gait analysis before all shoe sales, helping identify one's ideal size, shape, and brand of soft rubber foot cushion. Students of speed can up their game with high-tech nutritional supplements for quick refueling or GPS and heart-rate monitors to keep track of location and fitness levels. First Gear also monitors upcoming races, and hosts training workouts for novices attempting their first marathon or amateurs who are simply interested in giving a cheetah a wet willy.

Gentry's rich stock of apparel offers modern styles that can take you from the yacht to the charity ball and back. Slip into a pair of fashion-forward denim leg pipes from Diesel ($220), feel the button-up confidence of a Robert Graham sport shirt ($198), and then slightly dress it up with DKNY casual blazer ($295). Or just scrap it all, go traditional, and nab a Tallia three-piece suit (starting at $450) to clothe your superhero spandex until the time is right. Complement it all with a full selection of formal neck pythons, leather foot suits, and skincare products.

Bungalow 26's luxurious bath and body items will restore your body to a nubile state of relaxed joyousness unlike any since you got your braces removed. Polish and buff with Herb & Luxe Apothecary's all-natural Brand New Day salt scrub ($14.50 for 8 oz.), or feed your skin with 100% pure body creams ($16.50 for 8 oz.). The Laundress, a line of decadent laundry detergents, tenderly caresses threads in the spin cycle ($20 for 33 oz.), and Aspen Bay Candles burn for 100 hours and wrap noses in olfactory memories ($26.50).

Beadazzled is an art-glass studio and custom-jewelry shop that specializes in creating jewelry out of glass beads and natural stones. In addition to fully formed necklaces ($50+), bracelets ($48), and earrings ($20), Beadazzled supplies the experienced or novice jewelry-maker with everything needed to realize his or her own jewelry visions of stringing sugar-plum focal beads or sewing beads into knuckles and punching slabs of beef. Most beads are sold per piece; prices per bead range from five cents to $20.

Growing up in Benton, Kansas, fourth-grade pals Monte Ysidro and Jason Bell were probably more focused on seeing the chalkboard clearly than opening a collection of high-end optical boutiques. And yet, beginning in 2002, that's just what they did, starting out humbly in a 10'x10' kiosk at a local mall. Today, friendly staffers at each Specs location point guests in the direction of designer frames and prescription sunglasses by brands such as Gucci and Versace. The crew also employs advanced technology to create lenses with high-performance coatings, custom-fit curves, and high definition, which allow wearers to make out the moon's facial expression.

Having traveled to teahouses the world over, the owner of Chelmsford Tea and Gifts wanted to open a shop that represented the full spectrum of tea-brewing possibilities. With more than 180 types of loose-leaf and bagged teas from around the globe, his establishment unlocks a barrage of delicate flavors in prepared hot or iced drinks with expert steeping know-how. For the home brewer, the shop stocks french presses, stainless-steel infusers, and Brown Betty teapots from England, where tea-leaf reading is a televised sport. Naturally flavored black teas, herbal teas, and mild, caffeine-free rooibos teas also pair well the shop's stock of scone mixes and jams.