When shopping abroad, local knowledge goes further than hard currency. Eoin Lyons seeks out some expert opinion on London, New York, Milan and Paris
LONDON
Olinda Adeane of House & Garden magazine suggests visiting Les Couilles du Chien at 65 Golborne Road in Notting Hill. "It's a rude French expression - the literal translation is 'the dogs testicles' - but all the top London decorators go there for eclectic furniture, mostly from the 1950s onwards: fun things such as a seat from a Dutch tram, a lion's head, Italian 1960s lighting." Shoe designer Olivia Morris also loves the shop because "prices are so reasonable - I always see other antique dealers buying things that sell in their own shops at some horrendous mark-up."
Also in Notting Hill, visit the fashion store, Matches at 60-64 Ledbury Road and have lunch at the restaurant in the Nicole Farhi shop at 202 Westbourne Grove (check out her home wares line while you're there). On Thursdays and Sundays, go to the organic market at the top end of the Portobello road - not for vegetables, but for a bookstall that, according to Olinda Adeane, "no one seems to know about that sells beautiful old second-hand books".
She also recommends Joss Graham's store at 10 Eccleston Street in Victoria. A member of the family which owns the Graham & Greene shops, he sells some terrific Indian textiles, and small pieces of Eastern furniture. This street has a whole row of ethnic shops: next door are the Turkmen Gallery and Jenny Low's soup kitchen, an inexpensive lunch spot.
"Head to The Facade at 196 Westbourne Grove for chandeliers in all sizes, shapes and prices," says Alice Temperley, one of London's most successful fashion designers. She also likes the Succession furniture store at 84 Pimlico Road. "They're two guys who make the most amazing leather furniture. I bought a dark red leather table for my studio."
The David Gill Gallery at 60 Fulham Road is famous for Bonetti, expensive, handmade contemporary furniture which, as Irish interior designer Sirin Lewendon points out, "is art as much as furniture, and when auctioned at Sotheby's often sells for triple the original price." Gill sells to Madonna, and decorated a house for Elton John. The shop is worth a visit, if only to see some really extraordinary furniture.
Sketch, a restaurant on Conduit Street (No 9), beside The Conran Shop, has one of the most extraordinary public interiors in London. An 18th-century townhouse, its series of rooms have wall paintings that morph into chairs, inflatable furniture, a pair of Dali-esque inflatable lips, a disorienting staircase scrawled with poetry, a padded dining room and bejewelled capsule toilets in which fairground music plays. Prices are stratospheric. If on a budget, go during the day to the bar or café within the building instead.
When browsing in the furniture stores on the Kings Road, eat cheaply at The Chelsea Kitchen, (No 98), an old-fashioned place that does straightforward food and is always full during Fashion Week. Two bars to visit are Good Mixer and The Dublin Castle, both in Camden.
Carmel McElroy from Enniskillen graduated from the RCA last year and since then she has sold one of her designs to Ikea. She works with Philip Treacy, and suggests visiting Thorsten Van Elten on Warren Street (www.thorstenvanelten.com): "a great supporter of new design talent with a lot of witty products by London- based designers"; Mint on Wigmore Street, "a mix of beautiful and sophisticated products"; Liberty on Regent Street, "awe-inspiring shop selling homewares as well as fashion". And Places and Spaces, Old Town, Clapham, "offers an eclectic mix of interior products and services from emerging and established designers, contemporary brands and some vintage pieces."
NEW YORK
"One of my favourite shops in New York is Mantiques Modern (mantiquesmodern.com) at 139 West 22nd street. They have the best selection of late 1960s and 1970s furniture," says Irish hairdresser John Barrett, whose salon is in the penthouse of the Bergdorf Goodman department store. He also recommends: "Home Depot at 980 3rd Avenue at 59th Street - a must stop in New York." Home Depot (homedepot.com) is a warehouse style place with inexpensive furniture that can be shipped home, and they also have smaller items for kitchens, bathrooms and so on, such as lighting, linen and wallpapers.
Cork-born fashion designer Samantha Treacy held her first show in New York last year and says one of her favourite places is Moss at 146 Greene Street. "They carry a lot of minimal designs in lamps and furniture, much of which you cannot find anywhere else. ABC Carpet & Home (abccarpet.com) at 888 Broadway is probably the most over-the-top store to visit, with five floors of lavish furnishings, bed and bath stuff, carpets and antiques. You can spend hours there. If you are on a budget and still want to come home with bags of goodies, Pearl River is the place. Originally in Chinatown, they moved last year to 477 Broadway. It is filled with Asian furniture, clothes, cooking utensils, food and souvenirs."
On Madison Avenue, for entertainment value alone, visit the Donna Karan flagship store at No 810, where the entire ground floor is filled with her home lines, little of which is available in Europe. Assistants will usher you into a Zen garden at the back of the store to meditate on whether to buy that $1,000 throw.
At night, visit Beauty Bar at 231 East 14th Street on the Lower East Side, a former beautician's with all the paraphernalia still in place (www.beautybar.com). Start a night out in the East Village at coolest Irish bar in New York, The Scratcher, 209 East 5th Street between Second and Third Avenue. The small streets parallel to it have plenty of reasonably priced restaurants, including the B Bar & Grill at 40 East 4th Street.
Pottery Barn (www.potterybarn.com) has three stores in Manhattan - 59th and Lexington, 600 Broadway and 1965 Broadway - and while some furniture is a little too cute, it's got the chic Americana look sewn up and has some really beautiful things. Prices aren't too high, but they don't deliver to Europe so you have to organise shipping for bigger pieces. Pick up small items such as shower curtains ($59) like nothing seen here; wall vases ($19) for the bathroom; and 1930s-style telephones ($59).
One-time New York resident Tracy Tucker of Costume says two other places to visit are Anthropologie (anthropologie.com) at 85 Fifth Avenue for romantic bedding, bath and kitchen goods and Nancy Koltes (nancykoltes.com), at 31 Spring Street for colourful, quirky, tabletop and bed linens.
MILAN
Via Durini has showrooms for the big names in Italian furniture such as B&B Italia and Cassina. Garett O'Hagan of Haus suggests a store called Cargo for "affordable things you can bring home. It's an edgier version of Habitat with a crossover of styles such as Indonesian and Finnish. It's good for cool plastics for the bathroom or cheap lighting."
The best way to get to Cargo is to first visit its sister store High Tech in Piazza XXV Aprile. It sells more expensive household goods (and very unusual greeting cards) and runs a courtesy bus to Cargo on Via Meucci. Around the corner from High Tech is 10 Corso Como, a fashion store, bookshop, art gallery and café owned by Carla Sozzani, whose sister is the editor of Italian Vogue. This has plenty of expensive clothes, but also a mix of bits and pieces for the home. Make sure you see Driade at 30 Via Manzoni, a family-owned company that employs star designers such as Philippe Starck and Patricia Urquiola to produce furniture at reasonable prices. It sets out the trends of the season - colours, shapes and materials - in everything from kitchens to storage, sofas and accessories.
While there, ask for directions to the nearby Dolce & Gabbana store for a glamorous mix of 18th-century architecture and modern materials. Visit the D&G bar behind the store at night.
Furniture retailer Helen Kilmartin says the Promemoria store at Via Bagutta 13 is worth a visit to see very high-quality contemporary furniture. She also mentions the extraordinary Spazio Armani on Via Manzoni, Giorgio Armani's superstore that sells everything he produces, including Armani Casa. One of the main markets in Milan is Fiera di Senigallia, which takes place every Saturday along the wharf - find African craftwork, old furniture, second-hand clothes and who knows what else.
A precursor to the modern shopping centre, the Galleria Vittorio Emmanuelle II was opened in 1867. An elegant iron and glass arcade, it connects the Piazza Dumo with Piazza Scala and is filled with shops, cafés, bars and restaurants. Worth a visit just to see the building.
PARIS
Lisa Duffin of Bottom Drawer in Brown Thomas visi5ts Paris frequently and says the first place to go is Galeries Lafayette's home store, La Maison, opposite the two main Galeries Lafayette buildings on Boulevard Haussmann. "It's the coolest homewares store in the world right now. Four floors of mostly French goods, unlike anything you can get here. The place itself is very stylish, so you don't get a sense of it being cheap and cheerful, even though prices are not expensive. It's a good place to go for things like cutlery, for example, which is usually boring here, but they have colourful sets with mosaic handles." The BHV department store on rue de Rivoli on the edge of the Marais in the 4th is the place for everything you could possibly want (or didn't even know existed) for your home. Good value and quality, but sometimes stereotypically surly staff.
For fabrics, fashion designer Peter O'Brien says "Place Furstenberg, behind Café Flore in the 7th arrondissement is where the best couture-like fabric companies such as Pierre Frey or Manuel Canovas have their showrooms."
Wander around Boulevard St-Germain and its environs in the 7th arrondissement for gallery-like stores selling expensive contemporary furniture such as Kartel and Maxalto. Leading off the boulevard at the end of rue du Bac are The Conran Shop and Le Bon Marché, both worth a look.
Rue du Bac is full of rather expensive stores selling one-concept products. One has only embroidered pillow and cushion cases, there is one specialising in antique silver cutlery, and another selling minimal interior decor objets in various shades of brown, beige and cappuccino. Xanadou on rue St-Sulpice in the 6th has great table and household goods, but despite stocking names such as Philippe Starck, it's more of a dark treasure trove than a pretentious store. Cheaper things are available at Geneviève Léthu, a chain of stores that sells chic cutlery, crockery and so on at highly affordable prices. But it is not as inexpensive as La Vaissellerie (www.lavaissellerie.fr), a chain that sells kitchenware at low, low prices, much of it really good quality. There is a number of them around Paris, in locations such as rue St-Antoine (4th), rue de Rennes (6th) and rue St-Honoré (1st).