le rainy day

le life of luxe ...

I used to work with a lovely woman at Tiffany & Co. who had been with the company for many years and used to be the personal shopper at the flagship store in the 60's. Once over lunch she told me about a very loyal customer who used to call her on a monthly basis to pick out gifts for his wife. One day, on a whim of spontaneity, she decided to find the most outrageous thing in the store to see what he thought - what she found was a giant tulipiere, a vase with multiple openings, each meant to hold one or two stems of flowers. While I couldn't find any images of a Tiffany tulipiere, I always imagined that it would look something like this:

He absolutely loved it, and so did his wife.

With nothing to do this past Sunday, Keenan (check out her awesome post here) and I meandered around Sydney's luxury retail stores and took in all of the lavishly unnecessary beauty of luxury goods.

One of the first stops was Cartier where this funky / beautiful little ring lives:

There was also this cute, delicate necklace in their Love Collection - I love the mini interlocked Love Rings:

The next stop was Hermes where everything, and I mean everything (even the pocket-sized puzzle) exuded luxury and sophistication. I've never been partial to scarves, however, after seeing them in person and learning about the incredibly intricate silk-screening process, I can definitely see why Hermes scarves are so coveted.

This is their oldest design, Brides de Gala, originally made in 1957:

All of their scarves feature amazing detail - we saw one which featured a collage of chapel ceilings from all around the world. Here's an astrology chart:

There were lots of everyday luxuries, from incredibly soft baby blankets, to beach towels:

And of course, there were enameled bangles - lots of them:

In both classic designs and colors (pictured above) and funky, incredibly detailed prints:

While I have no intention / desire to deck myself out in luxury goods (well, maybe in Missoni, but I maintain that I will never ever be able to justify the price of a Birkin Bag) sometimes it's nice to simply marvel at their incredibly detailed construction. 

Images via www.manorhg.com, www.cartier.com, www.hermes.com