Top Of The Shops
Join the Viva team as they discover shopping mecca in the heart of Auckland City
If your hobbies include wandering stores in search of the latest finds across fashion, beauty, and lifestyle, then consider paradise found in the beating heart of Auckland’s city centre.
It’s a mixed bag of concept stores by local designers, as well as illustrious boutiques from globally renowned brands, all of which help to put Auckland on the map for its unique shopping offering.
And if another of your hobbies includes downing glasses of champagne and snacking on international fare, then you’re also in luck – nestled between stores lie some of the city’s most esteemed bars and eateries, proffering everything from extensive wine lists or tiki cocktails, to Vietnamese or Italian cuisine.
Expect to see a plethora of fashion and lifestyle stores when trailing your way up High Street. Auckland’s busiest one-way street features a mixture of local fashion designers and high street labels, interspersed with hole-in-the-wall cafes and nifty bookstores.
The Viva team met one Saturday afternoon for a spending spree around three of Auckland’s premiere shopping precincts – Britomart, High Street and Queen Street – before toasting to their shopping success with a glass of bubbles in hand.
THE BEST OF BRITOMART
A trip to Britomart isn’t complete without eyeing the hordes of glittering diamonds beckoning from Tiffany
& Co.’s colossal shop frontage.
A stone’s throw away, Chanel’s beauty boutique is any beauty aficionado’s dream. Chic perfume bottles line the windows, and state-of-the-art lighting make swatching foundation or lipstick a breeze. Plus the staff is incredibly attentive, which is always a bonus.
For a country as small as New Zealand, we punch well above our weight when it comes to local fashion designers.
Britomart alone houses flagship stores by WORLD, Karen Walker, Deadly Ponies, Kate Sylvester, Fabric, Juliette Hogan, Kathryn Wilson, Taylor, Zambesi and Trelise Cooper.
LITTLE LUXURIES ON QUEEN STREET
Lovers of luxury goods will attest to the premium designer offerings available on lower Queen Street.
Complete with elaborate and ever-changing window displays and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, a visit to the Gucci boutique is always accompanied with dreams of walking out holding the latest GG-adorned handbag.
Dressed all in white, it’s hard to miss the Dior boutique. Traverse the polished floors to the back section of the store, where you’ll find sculptural high heels and a private dressing room complete with cosy couches and ample florals.
It’s not uncommon to spy a queue outside Louis
Vuitton; the brand is most popular with offshore clientele. Spread across two levels, the concept store is separated into different sections to make easy work of navigating its diverse fashion offering.
Further along Queen Street lies one of the city’s most famed department stores – Smith & Caughey’s.
The ground level is home to a selection of premium beauty brands as well as a host of upmarket accessories. Jump on the elevator and explore the best fashion finds for women in Miss Smith’s Closet on level one, or head even higher for men’s fashion, homeware and lifestyle offerings.
TIME TO TOAST
No shopping trip is complete without a glass of something fizzy to end your day on a high note, so the team made a beeline to the courtyard at Ortolana in Britomart.
Even on a stormy afternoon, the covered courtyard felt cosy thanks to the towering gas heaters and snuggly blankets. It was all the more dreamy sipping from our champagne flutes as the fairy lights twinkled and the rain fell softly overhead.
The waiters at Ortolana are fluent in the Italianinspired menu, and ours wasted no time in suggesting a handful of dishes for us to share.
At the top of his list was the Piadiana, an Italian flatbread stuffed with mushroom, goats cheese, garlic and rosemary.
A highlight for Babiche was the Fior de latte, a semi-soft fresh cheese made in the style of Italian mozzarella. It was served with caramelised onion, pickled walnuts and garlicky sourdough and was one of the first dishes to disappear from our table.
Jo had a gym class to head to afterwards, so kept things light with the beetroot, orange, blue cheese and hazelnut salad, while Michelle and Ashleigh got stuck into the duck fat potatoes served with garlic and rosemary.