This cool, clean store offers can't-miss gifts to enhance comfort. Fine bed linens, handmade blankets, every bath accessory you can imagine, a great selection of plush bathrobes and towels, and sweet-smelling beauty products such as orange flower shampoo are all artfully arranged in bookcases. Service is friendly, and bedroom displays look so fresh and comfortable you'll want to lie down and sleep or at least make a few purchases to recreate the look at home. This is all about selling a lifestyle, clean lines, good quality cotton and linen and the kind of house you would find in an interior's magazine. Perfect for browsing and dreaming. TUBE: High Street Kensington
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Cologne and Cotton dresses the homes of the ladies who lunch in Knightsbridge, need I say more?
Emma's expert tip: Cologne and Cotton can be visited instore or online, great for getting the perfect home.
Alfie's Antique Market is the biggest covered market for antiques in London. It hosts numerous stall holders who sell antiques and collectables from a variety of eras. The place is frequented by interior designers, collectors, and set designers for theatre and television. You can get vintage clothes, and vintage China, including designers from the twenties like the English designer Clarice Cliff, famous for her brightly coloured geometric inspired designs. If Victorian charm bracelets are your thing, then this is the place to come, a perfect place to while away a whole day dreaming about how you'd fit out one of the beautiful neighbouring town house if you owned one, or picking up some great outfits for a fancy dress party or club night.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Alfie's antiques market offers you something a little bit different from bygone eras, with style.
Emma's expert tip: Great for gifts and things for your house and wardrobe.
Favored especially by fashion-conscious folks, this well-regarded department store is known for its propensity towards designer labels. Begun in 1813, the enterprise offers a wealth of men's and women's apparel, not to mention a strong home furnishings section and fantastic beauty department. Personal shopping services and a salon allow customers to be pampered even further, and a restaurant, cafe and bar on the top floor provide welcome respite in the midst of busy shopping sprees. The restaurant serves amazing food now, as it has all been recently revamped, and just outside is a food hall where you can pick up not only luxury food, but lovely kitchen ware to try and recreate the feel of the place at home too. TUBE: Knightsbridge
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Harvey Nichols is a perfect Knightsbridge baby, sophisticated, glamorous and very expensive.
Emma's expert tip: Harvey Nichols featured heavily in the TV show "absolutely fabulous" and it really is a fabulous store. Again, Christmas is a great time to go, with lights, sparkle and gifts a plenty.
London's world-famous department store, Harrods has been a city fixture since it opened in 1849. Impeccable service and a wonderful, diverse selection have earned the store a place in the hearts of Londoners. Although prices are somewhat steep, they're attached to quality merchandise, including apparel, toys, home furnishings and groceries. Plus, twice-yearly sales make things more accessible to budget-minded shoppers. Cultivating a bit of spectacle in Harrods are the Egyptian Room and a memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed, owner Mohammed's son. It gets busy at Christmas but is definitely worth a visit if you happen to be in London at that time of year, as it's Christmas tree and window displays are a delight. TUBE: Knightsbridge
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Harrods IS Knightsbridge. Whatever you think of the shop, it's worth a visit.
Emma's expert tip: Harrods is London's most famous store, and not to be missed on any shopping itinerary, even if you just pop in and buy a jar of marmalade to take home.
Rococo chocolates was founded way back in 1983, quite a long time before foodie businesses became mainstream, but in areas like Belgravia, Chelsea and Knightsbridge where Rococo functions, this kind of specialist store is emblematic of the area and the people who shop there. As the name suggests, these are deliciously decadent chocolates, think gold leaf, fine ingredients and velvety textures. They go perfectly with the area itself, Knightsbridge is all about luxury and fine living but it doesn't forget to support fair trade chocolate and cocoa farmers too. There are all sorts of interesting flavours here, but one of the new arrivals is rosemary and seasalt suspended in an artisan milk chocolate. There is also a summer pudding, white chocolate with mixed berries, and salty caramel balls disguised as seagull eggs. Makes the perfect present or special treat for oneself.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Rococo chocolates is the perfect Knightsbridge type of shop, elegant, independent and hugely luxurious.
Emma's expert tip: Rococo chocolates is the perfect place to buy a present or a special treat.
The Hummingbird Bakery is just one of a batch of delicious bakery and cupcake shops in London and across the UK. Serving up delicious butter cream topped cupcakes and various other things, this is about the American kind of cupcake, soft light sponge in various flavours and huge amounts of soft sugary topping. The bakery is very popular among ladies who lunch in Knightsbridge and no doubt its sugar confections also appear at many a child's birthday party in that part of the world. At Halloween the bakery does lots of ghoulish themed cupcakes, gravestones on top of muddy paths, pumpkins, ghosts and ghouls. At Christmas similiarly suitable themes abound. There are the usual red velvet and vanilla cupcakes, chocolate ones, black bottomed ones, which, if you're interested are dense chocolate cupcakes with a cheesecake centre and a frosted creamcheese topping and carrot cake.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Hummingbird bakery is another small concern made good and broken out of the confines of Knightsbridge. Delicious.
Emma's expert tip: Hummingbird bakery also does Whoopie pies, cheesecakes and celebration cakes as well as delicious cupcakes.
Divertimenti describes itself as the ultimate cookshop. There is cookware, bakeware, kitchen knives, electricals, a cookery school, cooks tools, food and books. All of top quality and great new gadgets that you didn't even know you needed, but once you use them, you can't live without them. There are things like cups for measuring curry spices, or ceramic knives. You can buy beautiful copper cookware and bowls, to recreate that victorian kitchen look. Agas too are part of the package and then, once you have bought this British classic, you can go on a cookery course to learn how to cook with the behemoth of the British kitchen. For those who like Maroccan cooking, there is an impressive range of Tagines in several colours, as well as paella pans and fondue sets. The store is also celebrating 50 years in 2013 too.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Divertimenti is a brilliant one stop shop for keen cooks and those who need to buy them presents.
Emma's expert tip: Divertimenti is a brilliant one stop shop for keen cooks, once you have bought the latest gadget, sign up for a cooking course to learn how to use it.
The Science museum is of course a museum store, but it's a great shop, and since the big museums form part of Knightsbridge and Kensington's cache then it seemed like a good list on which to appear. The museum itself is loads of fun for children and the adults who accompany them, and the shop continues that fun. Strange gadgets abound, gyroscopes, slinkies that climb down your stairs, puzzles, logic quizzes and chemistry sets. Basically full of interesting gadgets and gizmos. There are forensic kits, kitchen chemistry, first science sets and full blown chemistry sets, complete with chemical compounds, test tubes and even a small spirit burner. For adults there are USB desk fans, speakers for ipods and music players, flash cameras and smartphone extra boosting chargers. A techie paradise.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: The Science museum is a great store for children and adults alike, full of interesting and curious gadgets and gizmos.
Emma's expert tip: If you can't make it to London then you can always shop online too.
The Victoria and Albert museum is a world famous art and design museum. They have exhibitions of film costumes, Princess Diana's dresses, David Bowie, Vivienne Westwood and now Pearls. You can easily spend all day in the museum even just looking at the permanent collections, let alone in the shop which sells great coffee table tomes to accompany the collections and ideas expressed in the museum, as well as jewellery, clothes, cushions, furnishings, fabrics, mugs, stationery and presents. There are gloves, necklaces and children's toys. Brilliantly funny covers for your oyster card (travel card) holder in London riffing on the pearl theme of the late 2013 exhibition and much much more. If you can't get to the museum, then you can shop online too.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: The Victoria and Albert museum shop is another more arty example of what Knightsbridge does best. High end beauty.
Emma's expert tip: The V and A is perfect for the discerning aesthete's birthday. Shop online and enjoy your time there in the museum itself gaining inspiration.
Cutler and Gross is an international brand now, but it's flagship store is in Knightsbridge in the heart of West London. The store was designed by architect Piers Gough and is clean white lines to display their trademark sunglasses. Cutler and Gross has 40 years experience in finding the right glasses and sunglasses for you. They use vintage and vintage inspired frames with top of the range lenses. Present at fashion week and with their own magazine, the brand is present all over the world. It conjures up a kind of historical glamour mixed up with modern celebrity and they are seen as the thinking person's glasses of choice. Autumn winter 2013 men's collection for instance is inspired by bespoke British tailoring, a look that their glasses top off perfectly.
Recommended for Knightsbridge's Best Shopping because: Cutler and Gross' flagship store is in Knightsbridge, another example of Knightsbridge conquering the war.
Emma's expert tip: If you are looking for an original pair of sunglasses then Cutler and Gross is a great place to stop.