Recovering shopaholic? Tunisia could serve you well as a dry destination (though you won’t want for decent wine). The popular Andalusian-inspired pottery is cheap and charming, but nothing to write home about, most of the leatherwork resembles something out of Handicrafts of Asia circa 1973, and the traditional vintage textiles are  exquisite but near unwearable unless you’re thinking of joining a glam revival band (expensive and hard to track down to boot).

After a month of travel, I felt extremely virtuous, having bought nothing besides what the local’s beloved Monoprix, a ubiquitous French supermarche chain, offered up – jasmine soaps, strange fake saffron, tilleul teabags, alarmingly coloured toothpaste and a perfect crepe pan. With a flight home looming, I knew I had to bite the bullet and brave the souks (a prodigal mother cannot open her suitcase without gifts spilling out; then there’s my sister, a mother-in-law, the husband etc).

So I set aside an afternoon for shopping. Returning to the traders in the Tunis medina was an unexpected pleasure. Weeks before I’d stayed within the old city walls and been harassed at each pass, but now it was all ‘Madam! You’re back – no one ever comes back!’ A little mercantile banter later, and the promised discounts materialised. Fouta – striped and betassled cotton bathsheets –  tick; slippers in soft pistachio, rose and chocolate leather, tick; a few little vials of fleur d’oranger oil, tick. Still, back in my Sidi Bou Saïd hotel, I realised this bag of souk loot would hold little appeal for my daughters.

The street-side souq in Sidi Bou Saïd, a northern Tunis suburb, might appear to be less formidable than those in the tangled knot of the medina, but I soon found it wasn’t the case. Despite that fact that my stay in the village was a relatively long one and I always dressed modestly in shirts and ballerina-length full skirts or tunics and wide length pants, Sidi Bou Said’s traders never dropped the charade, cat-calling, issuing propositions and fixing outrageous prices for the drabbest of old tat. But I needed a few last little-girl friendly gifts, so I gritted my teeth and headed for a haggle.

The owl and cat figurines you see above are from the northern town of Sejnane. They are a dime a dozen, churned out by to appeal to the tourist trade, but are still made by village craftswomen by hand, dried first in the sun then fired in crude outdoor pits, a Berber practice that predates the use of a wheel or sophisticated firing techniques. Geometric patterns that have been used for millennia – chevrons, cheques, scallops and the like – are made with the black juice of the mastic tree on the characteristic ochre or tan base. The  reoccurring designs reference animist beliefs that predate those of the Phonecians, Romans or Arabs, though the creation of animal figures rather than pots or plates or some other kind of utilitarian vessel date back only a hundred years or so, when solely decorative pieces were made to please French colonial tastes (an authentic kind of inauthenticity). I was immediately drawn to the figures, for their strong, earthy duotones but also for the restrained but gestural line work that has an almost contemporary, illustrative edge, and moves seamlessly between two and three dimensions. And despite their undeniable appeal (how can one resist a coupling that conjures the sailors of the pea green boat?), they seemed rather left on the shelf, passed over in favour of baskets of stuffed camels and racks of fake football kit.

I hoped to secure a large cat for myself as well, but the doe-eyed teenager manning the stall seemed intent on exacting more than cash from me in exchange for the striking piece. Beckoning me into the gloom where the cat sat on a high shelf, he quite suddenly bit, yes bit, my arm, declaring I was as pretty as the moon, had the most beautiful eyes and hair he’d ever seen, and that if I met him later the big cat would be mine, no dinar required. I was too shocked to react, but instead thrust some dinars into his hand and fled, my two small ceramic charges safely in my hand.

My youngest daughter’s owl hit the deck pretty soon after it arrived home, breaking neatly in two at the claws. Still, you can hardly see the break and it served as a nice reminder of the temporal, unsentimental nature of pottery of this kind, made for everyday use, and easily replaced when the inevitable happens.

As for myself, I did manage to acquire a small coral charm, which I loved because it closely resembles the jewellery my Genovese in-laws wear. Bought from Ed Dar, a fascinating and friendly antique shop in the medina’s rue Sidi Ben Arous, it originates from the northern seaside resort of Tabarka, near the Algerian border, a Genovese stronghold in the 15th century, and where a fort built by the once great city state’s seafarers and merchants still watches over the town. The necklace too tells its own story of the rise and fall of empires, and of Mediterranean trade both ancient and modern.

When you have only one morning to go shopping in Paris, best not to find yourself at a 2am lock-in at your favourite Parisian friend’s local – in this case, Mon Chein Stupide (1, rue Boyer 75020, 01 46 36 25 49) – the night before. And best not precede that with a visit to his beloved neighbourhood restaurant, the comfortingly unpretentious, seriously produce-driven, and Michelin-starred Bistrot des Soupirs (49, rue de la Chine 75020, 01 44 62 93 31). There will be conversations about birth, death, love, war and Gil Scott Heron; your glass will never be empty, life will be impossibly sweet. Then you’ll wake up.

My Mamashelter bed was large and very forgiving, and with the sound of teeming rain and a great stonking hangover urging me to stay put, I wrote the morning, and my shopping lift, off. After ‘lunch’ at the Rose Bakery (46, rue des Martyrs 75009, 01 42 82 12 80) – nothing like a crumble and a jug of custard to help a sore head – I had my legs sugared at Cinq Monde – much more relaxing than a wax, as a calf massage is part of the process.

Then to the wonderful Institut Du Monde Arabe, in a valiant attempt to plough through at least a few hours of research before I headed across Ille St Louis to the right bank, the metro and pre-dinner nap back in the 20eme. But on the way ‘home’, as fate would have it, I missed the turnoff to the Pont Marie metro station and before I knew it, found myself outside cult sandal shop, K.Jacques (16, rue Pavée, 01 40 27 03 57). Then there was no turning back, the Marais sucked me in: Bensimon (12, rue des Francs Bourgeois, 01 42 77 16 18), Comptoir de Cotonniers (33, rue des Francs Bourgeois,01 42 76 95 33), Vanessa Bruno (100, rue Vielle du Temple, 01 42 77 19 41), Claudie Pierlot (Blancs Manteaux 9, rue des Blancs Manteaux, 01 44 78 03 33) and L’Arstisan Perfumer (‎32, rue du Bourg Tibourg, 01 48 04 55 66‎), all within a Chablis-addled amble. The 10eme’s APC and the Anne Valerie Hash aside, here was my shopping list writ large.

The fates seemed to want me to shop and I was in browsing heaven, but I was in no state for change rooms. Despite a final detour, a long, lustful wander and a cup of tea at the beautiful and oh-so right-on Merci (111 blvd Beaumarchais 75003, 01 42 77 00 33), by the time I found another metro station, I carried but two modestly sized shopping bags. One from Petit Bateau, with the obligatory dozen knickers for my daughters, the other from American Vintage (10 rue des Francs-Bourgeois 01 42 77 98 73 ), a label I first spied in Marseille in 2006, and whose endless riffs on the t-shirt theme have now fortunately found their way into the wider world.

The American Vintage bag contained the twin scarves – long, meltingly soft twists of cotton – pictured above. Why two? In grey and, well, grey? There are, as the cliché goes, many shades of grey; in the parlance of conte crayons, I chose one that was cool, another that was warm. (Or perhaps, recalling the urban bestiary of Paris, there’s a pigeon and  a mouse.) They’ve both since kept my chill-prone neck warm during many a flight and through the ever-shifting equinox weather of Melbourne, New York and Oslo. One or the other will go with everything I own, and I’m never quite as anxious about potential loss as I’ve got back up. And while there’s a host of similar pieces to be had, these carry both the insouciance and a particular attention to detail of their Provençal makers.

Teamed with a cream APC tunic, the warm one  kept my décolleté modest on my early morning flight south to Tunis, while the cool one got its first outing later that very evening. On the way to find a medicinal onion soup, my friend and I made an unscheduled stop on a windswept corner. A (largely female) crowd had gathered to watch a couple of strapping young pompiers liberate a wayward terrace umbrella that had been blown into the top branches of a very tall tree. Neck wrapped tight in my new scarf (and looped into messy pussycat bow, because it was, well, Paris), I was able to stave off the unseasonable cold while this slight but charming episode came to its happy conclusion. And what a cinematic one it was, the day’s inky clouds suddenly receding as the umbrella was retrieved, the firemen’s muscles flexing beneath sodden t-shirts, gold helmets glinting in the last rays of the setting sun.

Wedged between Sydney’s famous Oxford Street and Flinders Street, the eastern end of South Dowling Street could easily be mistaken for a quiet residential strip of inner-city living. But as Kris McIntyre discovers, this unassuming stretch of Darlinghurst is also home to some cute and quirky businesses selling everything from the tasty to the sexy.

SHOP
Madame Rouge’s Boutique for Love (No.327) is a decadent little cavern of sauciness for gals. Selling sexy lingerie, potions and lotions, female erotica and naughty sex toys, Madame Rouge’s boudoir makes shopping for the forbidden an indulgent journey to the secret world of feminine desire. Madame Rouge also runs burlesque dance classes at the Velvet Lounge in the nearby Beauchamp Hotel.

Paper Couture (No.284) is filled with charming handmade stationery and decorative paper-based objects. Special Pieces (No.366) sells antique Japanese and Chinese furniture and kimonos as well as Tibetan, Mongolian and Indian artefacts and well, as the name suggests ‘special pieces’. My Boudoir (No. 323) specialises in vintage clothes, shoes, bags, antiques, costume jewellery and some art. For hip fashion Mixed Designer Collective (No.319) sells Hussy, Cohen et Sabine, Nookie and Oscar the Third; and Capital-L (No.333) stacks its racks with labels including Something Else, Marnie Skillings, Romance Was Born, Notion of Legacy, Missy Jackson shoes, streetwear favourite Mad Cortes, Claud Maus, Gorman, Jessie Hill, Gabrielle Scarvelli and in-house label Please Louise.

PAMPER
Sharon-Lee Studios is the home of Sydney’s eyebrow queen. The ‘Brow Wow!’ eyebrow shaping treatment will set you back $90-$150 but your brows will never look so good (apparently, I just didn’t have that kind of dosh to splurge). Other services include eyelash extensions, tinting, manicures and pedicures. Open Tues-Sat. Phone (02) 9360 5124 for bookings.

CULTURE
Charles Hewitt Gallery (No. 355) specialising in contemporary Australian art with regular exhibitions by significant emerging and mid-career artists. Open Mon-Sat between 10am-6pm.

EAT
On the corner of South Dowling and Hannam Street, there are two great spots for a quick, tasty bite to eat. Look out for the sandwich sign hanging off the door and you are at South Dowling Sandwiches offering great sambos and tasty salads in a box. Across the road, new kids on the block at Youeni serve up snacks and lunches with fresh-roasted organic coffee. Just off South Dowling Street on the corner of Albion Ave and Selwyn Street, The Shop is a kooky hang for local creative types sipping on good coffee and tasty morsels delivered with amusingly ambivalent service.

DRINK
“There is more to life than beer alone, but beer makes those things even better” – the famous quote from intrepid beer love and biographer, Stephen Morris emblazoned on the awning of The Local Taphouse says it all. With more than 150 beers on offer, this popular pub on the corner of South Dowling and Flinders Streets serves up Australia’s largest range of beer with a blend of rustic elegance and trendy modernity. Filled with antique furniture, comfy couches and quirky curios like birdcages hanging from the ceiling, this is also a place where a Sauv. Blanc swilling lass can feel at home. The pub-grub is mod-Oz and a good companion to the specialty of the house. On the corner of Oxford Street, the Beauchamp Hotel is a well-loved part of Sydney’s pub heritage. Downstairs is an old-school-but-cool public bar whilst upstairs there’s a modern, loungey in the bistro and courtyard. The seductive basement bar, Velvet Bar, is open on Friday & Saturday nights unless privately booked by Madame Rouge or private parties.

GETTING THERE
Catch the 380 or 333 bus from Circular Quay or Elizabeth Street in the CBD and jump off near Taylor’s Square / St Vincent’s Hospital. South Dowling Street is a short walk towards Bondi from Taylor’s Square.

Running through the heart of Potts Point,

Eat at: During the day, head to Yellow Bistro (57-59) or Toby’s Estate (81 entry via Manning Street). For evening dining, Café Sopra at Fratelli Fresh (81), Busshari Japanese (119), and the amazing Fratelli Paradiso (16 Challis Avenue, off Macleay Street).

Drink at: Velluto Champagne & Wine Lounge (rear of 50 Macleay on the corner of Baroda Lane) and the bar at the rear of Lotus Bistro & Bar (22 Challis Avenue).

Shop at: For upmarket fashion Arida (61) and Becker & Minty Woman (Cnr Macleay Street & Greenknowe Ave). For homewares Becker & Minty (81 enter via Manning) or Macleay on Manning (85).

Indulge at: Alkaline Day Spa (91). Tip: book in for a treatment with River.

Read at: Potts Point Book Shop (14) or Macleay Street Bookstore (103)

Bloom at: Sydney’s most celebrated florist, Grandiflora (12).

Go to market at: Fitzroy Gardens Fountain markets are held every Saturday (for organic produce, flowers, pastries and food stalls) and Sunday (for second-hand books and clothing).

Getting there: Catch a bus or train to Kings Cross. Visit 131500.com.au for timetable information.(Note: numbers indicated are the street number on Macleay Street. Holiday Goddess suggests checking websites for opening hours and bookings).

How I came to be in Tromsø, Norway’s arctic ‘capital’, shopping in the never-ending autumn twilight is a long story. It had nothing to do with Johanna Lumley’s widely televised Norwegian odyssey. Suffice to say, my trip was an equally idiosyncratic one. I had flown to Vardø, Norway’s most easterly town, and one of its most northern, to see the site of a new and irresistibly strange collaborative work – a witch burning memorial – by French-American sculptor Louise Bourgeois and the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor.

I did, of course, still hope that I might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights; Tromsø is 350km inside the arctic circle and October is one of the most reliable months for sightings. I arrived from Vardø aboard the MS Trollfjord at midnight, and something was definitely going on up there in the sky, though it was more akin to the Northern Smudges. It turned out that I missed a great green glowing show by a few hours. Still, it’s yet another reason to return.

Tromsø is an enchanting island city of steep streets and 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses. Everything is within walking distance, including small, well-considered cultural institutions (I particularly like the Art Museum of Northern Norway and the Perspektivet Museum), craft suppliers, outdoor equipment shops, pubs, bars and excellent coffee at Kaffe Bonna. Plus heart-stopping views at the end of almost every street – mountains and the sea. If you’re not iPod ODing on local lads Röyksopp as I was, Grieg would, of course, go down well.

Shopping wasn’t high on my agenda. I was in need of a break from it, after a spell in mammon’s great maw, New York, and, in any case, was travelling with only a small (and already down and fur-stuffed) carryon in tow. But I wasn’t counting on coming across Fretex. Tromsø’s branch of the Salvation Army-run charity shop chain is as large as it is well ordered, and staffed by happy students decked out in bits and pieces of the chain’s current recycled fashion range. (My fellow shoppers all appeared to be immigrants from the Horn of Africa.) After poking around a bin of children’s seal-skin hats, I spotted what I knew, even at a distance, was the holy grail of op shopping: vintage Arabia.

Arabia is one of Finland’s most enduring ceramics manufacturers. Once an outpost of the Swedish Rörstrand company, they became independent in 1916 (shortly before Finland itself), and went on to employ many of the country’s great mid-century designers. The striped stoneware teapot I had spotted – one of Ulla Procopé’s timeless Ruska range – was in mint condition, and at 100NK (around $US20), was an absolute steal. My ecstasy quickly turned to agony. It was, as far as teapots go, a whopper. With its internal ceramic infuser it must have been well over a kilo in weight. And I was a long way from home. I carried my new found friend around the shop for a little while, trying to convince myself that it could, no problem, be wrapped in tissue and carried on separate to the carryon, but came to my senses and sadly put it back on the shelf.

So what you see above is the consolation prize. It’s definitely a souvenir – with a proud ‘Finnmark’ emblazoned around the Norwegian flag – but its illustrative style transcends tack, even if it is a tad faux-naïf. A riot of fishermen, tanker ships, islands and seals frolic on one side; Sámi people, skin tents, reindeer and sleds on the other. When explaining where I’d been to my daughters, it did a far better job than all my words.

The design is by Kari Nyqvist, and it was made at the Stavangerflint factory. I’ve long loved Figgjo Flint’s Lotte and Daisy designs by Turi Gramstad-Oliver, her lovely elongated forms decorated with insanely joyful figurative work, the exuberant Norwegian folk sensibility tempered by just enough mid-century Modernist restraint. But I had never heard of Stavanger. Both factories, it turns out, are named for the their respective and neighbouring west coast towns, and the two merged in the late 60s. I like to imagine the plate used to serve up solboller, a custard-splodged saffron or tumeric-tinted bun that’s baked to celebrate the return of the sun in January, after two months of dark. It’s got holes in its back for a hanging wire though, so it was always destined for decoration, not duty.

Oddly, it cost me 157NK, rather steeply priced in comparison to the teapot, not to mention a lovely 1950s Rörstrand bowl I also picked up for a paltry 10NK. The only thing I could put the price difference down to was Norwegian design nationalism. And yes, I still do miss ‘my’ teapot, but am consoled by the thought that through the winter’s long dark, it was busy dispensing hot tea to one of the Somali or Ethiopian or Eritrean families I shopped with that day. Hopefully they too have found a warm home among the staggering beauty of the far, far north.

Fretex
Skattørvegen 39
Tromsø, Norway

Domestic carrier Widerøe services the Finnmark and Troms regions of Norway; flights are relatively inexpensive. The Hurtigruten line has daily sailings from Kirkenes to Bergen in both directions, visiting Vardø and Tromsø along the way.

Louise Hawson walks into a cult tailor in Hoi An with $900 and walks out with a new wardrobe – and breathing difficulties.

cc. Flickr.com / John Brennan

I feel drugged and out of control. On the other side of the room I can see my friend is breathing hard, trying desperately to stay calm and focused. But it’s no use. We are goners. All we can do now is surrender to a notoriously dangerous gang operating on the coast of central Vietnam – the tailors of Hoi An.

When my friend had told me she wanted to visit the quiet seaside village of Hoi An I pictured us ambling down charming streets filled with glowing lanterns and beautiful Vietnamese women gliding gracefully on bicycles. With our children happily ensconced back at the hotel kids club we would be able to relax, taking in old heritage buildings and lively markets. Maybe we’d even learn how to whizz up fabulous dishes such as Pho Bo and Cha Ca at the famous Red Bridge Restaurant and Cooking School.

My friend, it turns out, had no such thoughts. Her goal in visiting Hoi An was to make a beeline for one place and one place only – A Dong Silk, one of the best dress-makers among the hundreds on offer. Here she planned to stock an entire wardrobe with every basic she could think of – skirts, dresses, trousers, jackets, shirts, tops. The lot, in a variety of summer and winter weights and colours. We did share one desire, to meet and talk with the locals. But whereas I wanted to find out what life was like in their part of the world she had only one question – do pockets on the back of trousers really help slim down a generous backside?

I only learn all this on the first morning of our stay in Hoi An. But fair enough, I decide, and after dropping off her son and my daughter to the kids club we make our way to A Dong Silk. As soon as we walk in I realise I have absolutely no interest in the hundreds of materials on display and quickly wave off the girls working in the shop when they approach me, measuring tape at the ready. No, no I tell them, I’m just here with my friend, I don’t want anything made.

Eventually they give up and leave me in peace to plonk down on one of the shop’s old wooden benches. My friend is in full flight, whirling around the shop pointing feverishly at different bolts of fabric and gesturing madly to the girls that she wants her shirt collars to be exactly this high and the pant legs precisely this wide, jackets cropped to this point. The girls shuffle quickly behind her, heads down, scribbling furiously to try and capture the non-stop list of commands. But as soon as they look up, pens at rest, my friend stops, looks off into the distance and shakes her head. No, NO! Not high collars, not cropped jackets, not wide leg, wrong, WRONG! And off she goes again: make the jackets long, to here, the collars short, the legs can’t be wide, they need to be snug. And tell me, do you think pockets on the back of my trousers would make my bottom look smaller?

I snigger quietly, feeling oh so superior. How embarrassing to be so out of control, gripped by material desires, literally. I wonder how many others have fallen prey to the stack of ‘inspiration’ books on the table in front of me, filled with lithe models draped in ridiculous designer garb. I count only one jacket that is wearable. I like the green wool felt it seems to be made of. Or is it corduroy. If I had to choose a fabric from this shop to have it made up in, which one would I pick I wonder. Not that one, no, not that one. Wait, hang on, what – if – hi, excuse me, see this picture, could you make it in that fabric over near the door, yes, that one – would it work?

And that was it, that’s how it happened. One inquiry about a green jacket turned into two hours of frenzied activity that left me sweaty and light-headed. To this day I can’t explain it. When I walked in I was genuinely uninterested in getting a single item of clothing made. I left knowing I would have to buy a new suitcase to carry back home the armfuls of clothing I had just ordered.

Moral of the story: You have been warned. Stray not into the tailor shops of Hoi An unless you are prepared to lose control of your senses and stumble out hours later, your head spinning and your pockets lighter. (And speaking of pockets, according to the ladies of Hoi An, the answer is yes, they most definitely do help to reduce the appearance of the larger derriere.)

Place: A Dong Silk tailors, 62 Tran Hung Dao, Hoi An.
Cost: A Dong is not the cheapest tailor in town but you get what you pay for. I had made four pairs of trousers, two waistcoats, three jackets (one green) and one dress. Three of these pieces were made out of beautiful cashmere wool. Total bill? AUD$900. Check out Trip Advisor for more details about A Dong Silk.
Other things to do:  (if you can drag yourself away from the tailors): Red Bridge Restaurant and Cooking School, Thon 4, Cam Thanh, Hoi An.
Accommodation: There’s good budget accommodation available. We splurged a little and chose the Victoria Hoi An Beach Resort and Spa. A club for kids is also available.

Photo Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnbrennan/ / CC BY-ND 2.0