360 DEGREES Weblog

Didn’t think you’d ever end up window shopping for beef tenderloin? Get ready for a rethink, especially if you are on Queen Street in Woollahra, Sydney, Australia.

In the well-established suburb, tree-lined streets offer a perfect enclave for cafes and boutiques, and for that most unlikely of things, a supremely cool butcher shop. Victor Churchill is the first, and so far the only, butcher shop established by Vic and Anthony Puharich, the father and son duo behind Vic’s Premium Quality Meat, the leading meat supplier to some of the finest restaurants in Australia, China and Singapore.

A butcher shop — Churchill’s Butchery -has operated in the space since 1876, so it was an appropriate location for what the Puharichs envisioned as a European-inspired designer shop of meaty delights.

To realize their vision, they engaged Sydney-based Dreamtime Australia Design whose many restaurant, bar and resort projects around the world combine traditional and modern elements in a deliciously layered and multi-textured way. This was Dreamtime’s first retail project but too juicy to pass, says Dreamtime director, Michael McCann

The store boasts so many unique, custom-designed and exclusive features that the only way to absorb it all is a real-life visit. The features provoke, intrigue and amuse the customer – starting with the façade with its double-glazed, refrigerated vitrine for viewing the ever-changing array of hanging meat and poultry, plus selections displayed on custom-made copper and glass shelving.

Inside, butchers work at timber butcher’s blocks on a “stage” behind floor-to-ceiling glass while specialty cuts of meat and carcasses, hung from a custom-designed cog gear and metal chain rack, slowly pass by. The backdrop for all this is a Himalayan rock salt brick wall that infuses the hanging meat with flavor and sterilizes the air. In a humorous nod to a recent Louis Vuitton window display, multiple video cameras are trained onto the daily special inside a glass dome on a pedestal.

Open since 1996, the family-owned bakery is a throw-back to another era. It is famous for its old-fashion desserts, especially its cupcakes and home-style multi-layered cakes. There’s a reason why has had staying power. Its baked goods are made fresh from scratch on premises, all day, every day, using the finest ingredients. Magnolia Bakery is also a nominee for a Readers’ Choice Award for Best Cupcake.

Magnolia Bakery specializes in such classic cakes as red velvet, ice box, German chocolate, devil’s food, coconut and banana pudding. In addition to cakes and cupcakes, other dessert specialties include brownies, magic cookies, peanut butter toffee bar, lemon squares, pies and cheesecakes. Magnolia prides itself on tradition and quality and strives to satisfy loyal patrons while maintaining the integrity of the brand. All Magnolia Bakery locations are certified as Kosher by the United Kosher Supervision.

Timing is everything, as a wise Greek poet once said, and in few areas is that more true than pop-up retail. Case in point: Recognizing that many consumers are particularly focused on fitness at the start of a new year, Gap has transformed its rotating New York City concept store into a workout haven for a month.

Through a partnership with fitness chain Crunch, Gap’s temporary Fitness Lab at 680 5th Ave. now features workout attire from its new GapBody Sport collection along with demonstrations by Crunch personal trainers, discounts and opportunities to win free stuff. Shoppers at the store, which will remain open through Feb. 7, can win free Crunch guest passes, for example; in addition, each day one lucky winner is chosen to receive a free, year-long, all-access Crunch membership. Existing Crunch members, meanwhile, can enter to win a USD 500 Gap gift card, Racked reported.

Far from fading away, the longstanding pop-up retail concept seems to just be getting stronger—both for major brands and for minipreneurs—and timely tie-ins stand to make its impact even greater.

Created by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka, this futuristic Hermes window display utilizes a projectors and monitors to produce the eye-popping illusion of scarves blowing in the wind.

Installing the Google Mobile App isn’t all that hard, but we do understand that people have run into problems with it before, so it’s good news that Google and Best Buy have announced a new partnership that will make the Google Mobile App available in Best Buy Mobile stores across the US. If you have a Windows Mobile, BlackBerry or Symbian S60 phone, you can visit a Best Buy store to get some help installing the app or see a live demo of what the application can do. Not to bad, eh?

We let you know back in June that eco-friendly designer Stella McCartney was creating a line for GAP Kids. The runway designer has been an early adopter of fashion for the people, creating an H&M line back in 2005, and an ongoing athletic collection at Adidas boutiques nationwide. And now she’s paving the way for top designers to enter into the kids market.

If you’d fancy dressing up your toddler in tuxedo jackets or tulle skirts, then this is the collection for you. And while the collection is full of statement pieces, there are also lots of practicals like jeans, tunics, and caps. McCartney created the line with her own children in mind. “I believe that kids clothing should be more accessibly priced,” she said in a release, “which is particularly important at the moment given the current climate.” Prices start at $14 for colored knit tights and on the higher end, a baby cashmere blanket sells for $98. The collection is sure to sell out quickly, and give some much needed holiday sales to the GAP and further make McCartney’s luxury brand a household name.

Whatever Parisian pastry chef extraordinaire, Philippe Conticini, does gets noticed. His talent for creating desserts that are art in all meanings of the word has found yet another expression this September when he unveiled his latest creation, La Pâtisserie de Rêves (the patisserie of dreams), in the chic 7th arrondissement in Paris. Nothing in the design of the sleek 29 square-meter boutique is reminiscent of a traditional European konditorei. Most strikingly, the stars of the space — the desserts, cakes and pastries — are displayed on a round platform in the center. Each of the 15 culinary masterpieces is presented under its own temperature-controlled glass bell suspended from the ceiling. Customers order their selection from the staff, after which each order appears directly from the kitchen. Both ideas evoke the feel of a meticulous laboratory where precious specimens are handled. Conticini has been in the culinary limelight for more than two decades with his own TV show, several books, restaurants and awards.

Thanks Coolhunter

To be perfectly honest I guess I really shouldn’t be that surprised that Walmart sells coffins and caskets on their website, but why are they listed under the ‘For the Home’ category? I’m pretty sure they have to be shipped directly to a funeral home, and in case you were wondering, they can’t accept a returned casket if it’s already been used due to FTC regulations. So forget about saving even more money on a refurb unit.

Thanks to Apple and Disney’s new retail partnership, your kids may soon be satisfied with a trip to the mall instead of Orlando or Anaheim. (Though since Steve Jobs is involved, it’ll probably still cost you.)
As reported this week, Disney is planning to spend $1 million per store over the next five years, with Apple’s help, to convert each existing Disney-branded outlet from a simple retail location to a complete “experience.”
As the Times reports, Apple and Disney are carefully studying each others’ expertise:
Mr. Jobs provided access to proprietary information about the development and operation of Apple’s highly successful stores, and Disney executives visited Apple’s research operation in Cupertino, Calif. Mr. Jobs… also insisted that Disney build a prototype store to work out kinks, a costly endeavor that most retailers skip.
Disney should listen to Jobs carefully. Yes, the Mouse House is a consumer products monster, with worldwide sales last year increasing to $30 billion in global sales. But Apple’s stores boast the highest per-square-foot sales numbers of any mall-based retail outlet. Their combined expertise and resources creates the potential for a bone fide global juggernaut.
While Disney fanatics have always congregated around a mutual love of the brand, this new enterprise boosts Disney’s other efforts to build a full-blown community around the brands it controls. In September, Disney held its first-ever D23 Expo, fashioned on Comic-Con conventions, where fans can meet and enjoy “exhibits, screenings, presentations and interactive experiences from every part of The Walt Disney Company.”
While their core competencies may be complementary, the match isn’t perfect. Unlike Apple’s, the Disney brand thrives on nostalgia, not progressing modernity. And Disney has overreached before: Launched in 1987, Disney stores were initially so popular and lucrative that the brand expanded beyond any reasonable level, to more than 600. And within six years of launch, the stores were hemorrhaging nearly $100 million a year.
Disney’s lucky to have a partner who knows retail — and the meaning of “restart.”

Paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus purports that man started wearing shoes between 26,000 and 40,000 years ago. The average American woman today is said to own 27 pairs of shoes. This is all interesting stuff if shoes are your passion — as they are for Maecenas Dirk Vanderschueren, owner of Cortina, one of the world’s largest shoe manufacturers.

To share his passion Vanderschueren created a “shoe experience” SONS – Shoes Or No Shoes in Kruishoutem (Cruyshautem), in East Flanders, Belgium, about 70 kilometers (70 miles) from Antwerp and Brussels, and close to Cortina’s hometown of Oudenaarde.

SONS consists of three collections. The Ethnographic Collection, amassed by former shoe distributor William (Boy) Habraken, includes 2,700 pairs from 155 countries and is acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as the largest collection of tribal and ethnological shoes.

Antwerp-based shoemaker couple Veerle Swenters and Pierre Bogaerts contributed the Modern Collection — some 1,200 pairs acquired from artists, many of whom customized the shoes, evoking the question: Are they art or shoes? Shoes or no shoes?

The Designer Collection, also accumulated by Habraken, showcases unique footwear form 20th-century and contemporary designers including Salvatore Ferragamo, Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik.

SONS is housed in a building designed and built by gallery owner Emile Veranneman and architect Christiaan Vander Plaetse in 1973. Architects Lode Uytterschaut and Johan Ketele revamped the structure for the constantly growing shoe collections. Outside, they covered the building with lead and inside, they created an unpretentious warehouse look using industrial shelving systems and almost no color.

Thanks CoolHunter