This Melbourne Icon Is Bringing Back the Lost Art of Christmas Shopping

In partnership with Emporium Melbourne, we’re celebrating the pleasure of a Christmas shopping day in the city, complete with thoughtful presents, long lunches and a little festive wonder. Plus, there’s $1,000 gift cards up for grabs*.

The great fiction of Christmas shopping is that you can get it done in an hour. You leave home with three names in your Notes app, a half-formed idea for Mum and every intention of being back by lunch. Then Melbourne gets involved. There are shop windows to admire, a book you didn’t know you wanted, something small and beautiful that solves the problem of your impossible-to-buy-for sister. Someone suggests lunch. Somebody else orders another coffee. By the time you remember the shopping list, you’ve had rather a wonderful afternoon.

At Emporium Melbourne, the art of making an afternoon of it is alive and well. Melbourne designers keep company with international fashion houses, jewellers have beautiful things that fit inside the smallest boxes, and even lunch deserves a place on the itinerary. The House of Melbourne, still finding ways to delight, and never more so than at Christmas.

It would be a shame to rush it.

The Art of Finding Exactly the Right Thing

Every Christmas list has a difficult customer. Your sister, who’s been sending GANNI screenshots since August and insists they’re ‘not hints’. Mum, who says ‘nothing, darling’ while inspecting every handbag she passes. The friend who once described a candle as ‘a bit hotel lobby’. Then there’s the woman who turned up with wine when your life went sideways. She deserves something she’ll keep.

The trouble with Emporium is that one good idea leads to six more. At Aje, CAMILLA AND MARC and Scanlan Theodore, the dress intended for somebody else somehow ends up in your fitting room. GANNI has the bag your sister would steal if you gave it to anyone else. Oroton might finally solve Mum. By Charlotte, Mejuri and Georg Jensen have those little boxes that make somebody forget what they were saying.

And the building has a habit of sending you delightfully off course. Dinosaur Designs has resin pieces in rich, almost edible colours; Marimekko brings exuberant prints to the table. At Le Creuset, you catch yourself considering a casserole dish for the friend who hasn’t used her oven since March. At Readings, ten minutes among the books becomes an hour. Aesop and Bespoke Letterpress have the finishing touches: scents, fine paper, the card you actually take time to write.

Some of the best presents are for people who weren’t expecting one. A small thank-you. That thing someone mentioned in passing six months ago and has probably forgotten about. By the time you remember to check your Notes app, there are three more names to add.

And Then, Of Course, Lunch

Melbourne can turn a sandwich into a civic obsession, so subsisting on caffeine and Christmas cheer was never going to be much of a plan. At Emporium Melbourne, a little hunger can lead to a two-hour detour.

On Level 3, Haidilao’s hot pots arrive steaming, with rich tomato or tongue-tingling chilli broths and plates of vegetables and noodles crowding the table. Nearby, Tanyu Lab’s Sichuan-style grilled fish comes swimming in green-pepper broth, demanding extra rice and no appointments afterwards. One floor up at Tetsujin, sushi glides past on the train while cuts of wagyu hiss over the Japanese barbecue. Down on the lower ground, Saint Dreux serves golden chicken katsu between pillowy slices of bread, with specialty coffee and black-sesame castella to follow.

Someone orders another round. Shopping bags gather beneath the table. The friend you haven’t seen since winter has only just got to the interesting part of her story. Another course? Go on, then.

When the City Starts Singing

Christmas in Melbourne has its own glamour. Summer dresses beneath the decorations. Office parties spilling onto the footpaths. A panettone getting its own seat on the tram. At Emporium Melbourne, the season gets a soundtrack.

From 9 November through to Christmas Day, A Very Melbourne Christmas brings together the city’s love of style, food, culture and a good celebration. As part of the festivities, the Melbourne University Choral Society and Australian Girls Choir will perform in the atrium on selected dates. One minute you’re deciding between two pairs of earrings. The next, a choir has started singing, and you’ve quite forgotten which pair you preferred. Even the most determined Christmas shopper can spare a few minutes for that.

And just when you thought the Christmas shopping was under control, Emporium has another rather lovely surprise. From 9 November to 13 December, shoppers have the chance to win one of twelve $1,000 Emporium Melbourne gift cards, with the lucky winners drawn on 15 December. Simply sign up to the Emporium E-Edit for your chance to win.* An extra $1,000 to spend at Christmas? We can think of a few things we’d put that towards.

Terms and conditions apply.

Later, when someone asks what you picked up, you say, ‘Oh, a few things,’ which is a magnificent understatement. There are presents to hide, ribbons to untangle and several weeks of keeping a straight face. The magic of watching them unwrap it is all still to come. This Christmas, make a date with Emporium Melbourne.