Shopfront: The magazine to buy this month is Architectural Digest's Great Design Issue (€10.59 at Eason's).

Sandwiched between the usual photographs of extraordinarily glossy houses are pages filled with what the magazine - along with a number of interior designers and architects - have decided are the greatest designs in everything from watches and luggage to motorbikes and clothing. And of course furniture.

What's interesting is that the list has excluded many of the usual suspects that tend to crop up in these type of things.

So although Le Corbusier's chaise makes it in - as do pieces by Marcel Bruer and Jean Michel Frank - most other ubitquious "classics" do not.

Which is great, because it allows a mix that is eclectic to say the least: a 19th century Japanese wheel chest, Elsa Schiaparelli's trompe l'oeil sweater, William Kent's 18th century garden layout, Josef Hoffman's 1920s cutlery, contemporary Molenti kitchens and even the Taj Mahal are featured.

Some entries are just a little suspicious: are Ralph Lauren's colourful column dresses really the greatest modern fashion? Is Audi's new car the best thing ever?

As interior designer Mica Ertegun points out: "Great design no matter what the object embodies aesthetics, proportion and function combined with creativity." Follow those words as you read and it should be easy to spot the duds from the real thing.