Ladybeat

Though not yet as evident here as overseas, names such as Prada, Hermes, Issey Miyake, Giorgio Armani and Comme des Garcons have engaged with modern architects Tadao Ando, Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, Renzo Piano and the Swiss duo of Herzog & De Meuron to design new stores, showrooms and headquarters to showcase their designs.

Architect Hamish Lyon of retail specialists, B + N Group Architects - the practice that is designing the retail and laneway components of the Queen Victoria hospital site development - reckons the ``trickle-down effect'' is likely to hit Melbourne sooner rather than later. Issey Miyake hired Frank Gehry, architect of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, to design his flagship New York store.

Across town in Soho, Italian fashion giant Prada has opened a new $US40 million ($A76.9 million) store designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas in a warehouse that housed a branch of the Guggenheim Museum. Prada is also using Koolhaas to design its San Francisco and Los Angeles stores, and has the Swiss pair of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, who designed the Tate Modern in London, working on its United States headquarters in New York, a store in Tokyo and a dramatic new production centre near Arezzo, in central Italy.

In Milan, Giorgio Armani engaged Tadao Ando to design a new showroom and theatre. Ando has also restored a 17th century villa for Benetton. Hoping to restore its image, Hermes, the legendary French brand, engaged Italian architect Renzo Piano for its new 11-storey store and administration centre for the Asian region in Tokyo's Ginza district.

In Melbourne the dream of Stephen Bennett -the visionary and founder of the Country Road label and stores; Georges, probably came closest to the concept. It was the relaunch of a legendary store name linked with British design guru Sir Terence Conran and architect Daryl Jackson. Lyon says the phenomenon of Georges on Collins was, interestingly, the catalyst for the creation of a new fashion precinct in Little Collins.

``Lots of little fashion shops came to the area to trade off the back of the success that Georges was going to be,'' he says

``The mothership died but its children lived on." Probably the only enduring local examples of marrying architecture and retailing, although now dated, are the Esprit fashion shops, in Carlton and South Yarra, designed by Italian architect Ettore Sottsass and executed locally in collaboration with Daryl Jackson; and the Country Road flagship store on the corner of Chapel Street and Toorak Road, designed by Metier 3 Architects.

Another Melbourne experiment was the collaboration between architect Tom Kovac and the Succhi shoe stores in Swanston Street, Melbourne, and Chapel Street, Prahran (now both gone), where Kovac used his obsession with the exploration of the curve in architecture to create retail spaces that were akin to sculptural installations
Joe Rollo Melbourne Age

Most people believe the seven deadly sins are out of date, and that traditional transgressions such as sloth, gluttony and lust should not stop you from passing through the Pearly Gates. Cruelty is considered the worst sin anyone can commit nowadays, followed by adultery, bigotry, dishonesty, hypocrisy and selfishness.

Of the seven deadly sins Thomas Aquinas enumerated in the 13th century, only greed is still viewed as a reliable passport to eternal damnation. Anger is the traditional sin we commit most often, followed by pride, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth and greed.

Not surprisingly, we rather enjoy lust and gluttony, but get the least pleasure from anger and envy, a survey of 1001 adults for the BBC found. Ross Kelly, presenter of the BBC program that commissioned the survey, believes attitudes towards sin have shifted. "We're less concerned with the seven deadly sins and more concerned with actions that hurt others," he said.