Doing it for Britain

EARLIER this year the British luxury brand Burberry opened its biggest ever store and it did it on home turf.

Burberry

EARLIER this year the British luxury brand Burberry opened its biggest ever store and it did it on home turf.

The new store on London's Regent Street is spread over four floors and with more than 2500sqm of selling space it stocks all the products in the Burberry universe. Like most Burberry boutiques, the Regent Street store features plenty of cutting-edge technology, with the aim of seamlessly blending the real world shopping experience with the digital one. It even boasts the tallest indoor retail screen in the world, pictured above, at 6.9m high. It's envisaged the Regent Street store will also host live music events by Burberry Acoustic musicians so the architects, under the creative direction of Christopher Bailey, incorporated more than 420 speakers into the building. The opening of the Regent Street store coincided with a serious push by Burberry to enter the world of mechanical watches, with the launch of The Britain watch.

The rounded octagonal-shaped watch with a matte black dial has a self-winding mechanical movement in a 43mm stainless steel case finished with fine vertical brushing and a stainless steel bracelet. $2599; burberry.com

Your very own trailer
When Wally Byam launched the Airstream travel trailer in 1931 he knew that the rounded shape and aluminium construction would make it easy to tow. What he couldn't have known is that the disctinctive trailers would become a design icon and a favourite of Hollywood celebrities. The Airstream brand was recently launched in Australia, with two models, modified to comply with Australian standards, on offer.
Priced from $115,000 for the 624, 6.2m-long model. airstreamaustralia.com.au

Practice piece
After more than 25 years in practice, and with a suite of exceptional buildings to their credit, including the Balencea apartments in St Kilda, pictured below, Melbourne-based architects Wood Marsh is the subject of a comprehensive monograph. Published by Belgian Beta-plus, the limited edition tome focuses on the practice's extensive residential work, spanning single family dwellings and multi-storey apartment towers. Though largely pictorial, essays (by Philip Goad, Max Delaney and Helen Kaiser) preface the book and lend insight into the practice's conceptual foundations and scope of endeavour. Rrp $180.

Ritzy gifts
If you're travelling to London this month you might want to consider doing some Christmas shopping at Clarence House. That's right, HRH, the Prince of Wales, has turned his house into a shop ... well, not quite. Each year a range of gifts such as hampers, organic sloe gin and painted teapots are placed on show at Clarence House for an invitation-only evening of Christmas shopping, with the profits going to the prince's charitable foundation. The trick, of course, is knowing how to get an invitation. Luckily, here at WISH we're well connected, and you can be, too, if you are a member of Leading Hotels of the World's Leaders Club, the hotel group's loyalty program that offers members a range of benefits such as room upgrades and access to one-of-a-kind experiences at LHW properties around the world.

This year, Leaders Club guests arriving on November 11 at The Ritz London will receive a personal invitation to the Highgrove shopping and champagne experience at Clarence House. Priced from 470 per person, the package includes two nights' accommodation as well as breakfast and a three-course dinner at The Ritz Restaurant.

Leaders Club membership is $US150 per year. For more information on membership and examples of other unique experiences contact LHW on 02 9377 8400 or visit lhw.com.

WISH likes ...
Bond, James Bond, movie tie-in products. At WISH we're big fans of the entire James Bond oeuvre and one of the things we like most about 007 is his love of the finer things in life. The Bond movie franchise is one that takes the business of product placement and turns it into an artform. It's like a showcase of luxury products. We already know Bond, as played by Daniel Craig, wears an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean watch, drives an Aston Martin, wears Tom Ford suits and, when it comes to swimming, likes Orlebar Brown trunks.

And when he's not drinking martinis, he likes a drop of Bollinger champagne. To celebrate the latest Bond film, Skyfall, Bollinger has released a limited edition of its La Grande Annee 2002 vintage in a special box shaped like a Walther PPK silencer.

Brighter outlook
Some 60 years ago, Finnish textile and clothing design company Marimekko was born and children's bedrooms have never been the same since. The brand's distinctive and bold designs have adorned everything from fabrics to tableware and home furnishings and, despite having a very disctinctive look, its designs have endured and remained popular for decades. In fact, the popularity of Marimekko has grown so much in recent years - sales reached 170 million ($215 million) last year - that it has branched out into stand-alone stores.

This year the publicly listed company will open two stores in Australia, the first of which will be on Sydney's burgeoning luxury precinct of King Street and the second on Melbourne's Chapel Street. These follow store openings in New York, Boston, Helsinki and Hong Kong and have been designed by a Marimekko team and the Tokyo-based architecture firm, IMA. The stores, which have high ceilings and lots of natural light, will stock the entire range of Marimekko products and fabric designs. Get ready for a splash of colour. marimekko.com