Wish list / Gift list
Luke Bird

For Christmas, I’m actually in the Hawkes Bay with family. No agenda, spontaneity is the key.

Absolutely I will be having some snacks. I’m a bit of a red wine drinker. I’m into a good whiskey, good cheese. But let’s be real, getting up on Boxing Day and having day-old champagne ham fried in butter, good poached egg. Done. And champagne. There are no rules for Christmas. Just blob out, eat up, go hard, bam!

Normally it’s all about family. Generally about celebrating each other and family time. It’s about giving people attention, rather than celebrating with materialistic things.

Well now that I’ve been thrown in the deep end, I do. I’ve got three things I like.

• Fashion. I like colour, I like bold, I like difference. I don’t like to look like everybody else. Conforming is the biggest fashion crime. So anything colourful or gold. I’m a big World fan, obviously. In particular, one of our World Man blazers. And the thing with statement pieces like that is that you can still wear them in eight years time and still get the same reaction as when you first bought it: “Where’d you get that from?! Wow!” 

• My second would be this candelabra from the year 1840. I really like things that have history behind them. That was put in someones home in 1840, and the wax is still entrenched in the crevices of it, someone carved that. It think that’s pretty special - I’d love that piece in my home. 

• There’s a mirror here from 1690 I’d love too. It’s Italian or French. I mean… imagine who was looking in that in 1690? 

Sure. 

• A fragrance. In particular, Eight & Bob, the original from 1934, which became famous because a young JFK pestered the French owner Albert Fouquet – who made it for himself – so much to use it, that finally he caved and sent it. At the end of his letter he wrote: “Here’s some French sophistication that you Americans lack.” That was before JFK turned into the President. The fragrance became so popular that Albert’s butler had to hide it in a book, so when it’s purchased now it comes with the story, hidden inside the book. It’s made using the Andrea flower, in Chile, and it’s only harvested in December and January every year. So buying a fragrance like that you’re getting exclusivity. If we run out tomorrow, we wouldn’t just be able to get it.

• My mum is getting right into her fashion at the moment and she’s a Trelise [Cooper] girl or a World girl, so I would probably lean towards the sequinned World Counterfactual Shirt Dress. She likes that.

• Or I would give a Britomart Black Card, because you could get fashion, fragrance, accessories, jewellery, dining out. I think that’s a good idea because it’s not limited to one store. You couldn’t go wrong with a World voucher either, for exclusive gifts. I’m a big fan of vouchers because it leaves it up to the receiver to get what they like. Then if it’s wrong, it’s their own fault.