KEY POINTS:
Lovers of luxury labels with cash to spare will fancy this little number for a stocking filler.
Longines, the Swiss watchmaker, has been producing prestige timekeepers since 1832, and to celebrate its 175th year in business the company has made a special lady's watch.
It's studded with 175 diamonds and will only set you back just under $10,000.
There is just one watch available in New Zealand and it's at Partridge Jewellers, cnr Queen St and Vulcan Lane, phone (09) 309-8925.
Playtime
Need a gift suggestion for your design-savvy friend who already has everything aesthetically pleasing?
Toykong, the store specialising in cult and designer toys, has just received a shipment of new toys from overseas.
The store is in Canterbury Arcade, between Queen and High Streets in downtown Auckland. Ph (09) 308-988, or go to www.toykong.com.
Slip into these
More cute shoes in at the Jaimie boutique: these ones are like ballet slippers except they're quirkier and they tie all the way up your ankles. The look of the shoes, which are handmade in Australia, is a little bit neo-Bohemian and a little bit 60s supermodel. And they cost $210. 270 Ponsonby Rd, Ph, (09) 361-4000.
Super surplus
One store's surplus stock makes for another's sales extravaganza. Tatty's has just received around 50 brand new jeans from labels such as Sass & Bide. They're on shelves now. 159 Ponsonby Rd, ph (09) 376-2761.
Light touch
One of this country's most successful design exports, David Trubridge, has come up with a new light. Travellers to America and Europe may already have seen his distinctive curved wooden lightshades hanging in store windows all over the place.
Now a new shade, called Ika, joins Trubridge's successful lighting collection. Trubridge says the products have all been made in as sustainable way as possible, using a recyclable form of plastic and pine from sustainable Australian plantations.
The new plastic shades will retail for around $232 as a kitset and the new wooden shades will retail for around $500 complete. They're available at Essenze, Simon James Design and Eon Design Centre.
Quiet zone
By now it's quite possible that you will have had enough of the crowds, the sweaty car rides, the traffic and surly shop assistants who refuse to Christmas wrap your purchases because they ran out of Sellotape.
Relax, sit back at your computer and check out new website, Neelear Nomad. This shopping website cleverly offers the sorts of things that are easy to buy online: handbags, sleepwear and jewellery, among other homewares and accessories.
It also boasts that it's the first website in the country to sell prestige brands, Dyrberg Kern jewellery and Olga Berg bags, online. And because there really is something here for everyone- from aromatherapy to toilet bags to bracelets - it's almost like one of those fancy gift shops on Ponsonby Road. See www.neelearnomad.co.nz for more.
