Bristol & Brooks

Bristol & Brooks is on the top floor of the QVB, an extremely handsome building both inside and out which was designed by Edinburgh-born architect George McRae, completed in 1898, and apparently only narrowly saved from being turned into a carpark in those enlightened planning days of the 1980s. It's richly decorated inside and features an array of designer stores on the ground floor, with the shops becoming slightly more esoteric the further up you go. The QVB is currently featuring a slideshow of pictures by Australian fashion photographer Bruno Benini. The mainly black and white pictures are a startling contrast to QVB's highly coloured interior. Bristol & Brooks seems to favour Alessi, but there's a nice little collection of interesting objects there (and I came away with a ceramic "eco-mug").