LA is a town obsessed with its zip codes and area codes. On the postal front, a single digit can differentiate an average area from a hot 'hood (who’d want to hail from discreet 90211 when they could hang in attention-grabbing 90210?). On the phone front, Angelenos cling to their prestigious digits (from 310 by the beach to 213 downtown) like they were badges of honor. With numeric codes as status symbols, this is a city preoccupied with its neighborhood borders. More so than other towns, each section of Los Angeles has a very distinct vibe, crowd, and, perhaps most importantly…retail subculture. While fashion consciousness is a competitive sport in Tinseltown, where you shop is nearly as important as what you wear.

So, let’s break this down a bit. For starters, the 90210 didn’t garner its opulent cachet for nothing. Within the Beverly Hills zip code’s “Golden Triangle,” high-end luxury boutiques and heavyweight design houses alike have found happy homes. It’s a tight-knit community of those-who-have-serious-cash-to-burn. Fashions here are less trendy and more haute couture than other LA neighborhoods, especially at traditional department stores like Saks and Neiman’s (though the outpost of Barneys New York is shaking things up a bit with its open floor plan and stock of emerging designers). Along infamous Rodeo Drive, you can hop from Armani to Jimmy Choo, Chanel, and Gucci like you were a neighborhood kid trick-or-treating for fashion candy.

While celebs certainly haunt the 90210, for the most celeb-heavy experience (both sightings and celeb-fave trendy merchandise), you’ll have to cross out of its sacred borders and head east. Robertson Boulevard shares Rodeo’s 310 area code and also some of its designer flagships (like Chanel) but almost none of its decorum. It’s an all-out paparazzi fest as Young Hollywood’s finest elbow past telephoto lenses to get their paws on the boulevard’s ultra au courant wares at trendsetters like Kitson, Intermix, Alice and Olivia, True Religion, and Nanette Lapore.

For even trendier goods, grace the 323 with a visit to legendary Melrose Avenue, a funky mishmash of indie shops and designer boutiques that’s been outfitting the cool kids for decades. Chill things out with jeans, t-shirts, and fun frocks at not-to-be missed Fred Segal, a collection of fabulously edited boutiques where the duds (though not the prices) are Cali casual. Go on a trend-spotting safari at Maxfield, an imposing concrete space where starlets root through the racks of fresh-from-runway couture amid eccentric curios.

Out in the ‘Bu (that’s Malibu for all those not familiar with 90265 parlance), they’ve imported some of the hottest names from Melrose/Robertson like Maxfield and Intermix, along with some celeb-stalking paparazzi. Though these shutter-happy tabloiders are known to lurk in the parking lot of the Malibu Country Mart/Lumber Yard–two interconnected shopping campuses chock-a-block with boutiques, cafés, and shady green spaces–the low-rise buildings and ocean air make this a refuge from more frenzied 310/323 alternatives. Everything from high-end designers at Madison (stocking Marni, Missoni, Stella McCartney, and Chloe, among others) to laidback standbys like J.Crew and James Perse are represented within Mart-and-Yard boundaries.

If you want something truly off the map, you’d better head to the margins of Los Angeles. Way out west, there’s Abbot Kinney Boulevard in beachy Venice, where the anti-chain-store lobby of progressive artist types has fostered the sprouting of offbeat niche boutiques (but don’t let all that crunchy granola stuff throw you off–there are some seriously funky yet upscale goodies to be had from Euro-cool fashions at Salt to indie accessories at Principessa). Pushing the 323/213 border on the Eastside, there’s Silver Lake, a boho 'hood where cheap(er) rents and a diehard hipster constituency incubate up-and-coming designers and whole stores devoted to cool sneaks and ironic T-shirts. Don't be surprised if you stumble upon a shirt emblazoned with a "323" or "213"–in a shopping landscape this sprawling, you gotta represent.

Photo of Rodeo Drive courtesy of oansari on Flickr Creative Commons