FORM

This little place elevates burgers to gourmet standard and serves such huge, stacked buns that they arrive skewered through the heart so as to hold everything together.

This could possibly be the smallest outdoor café in the world – two tables on the footpath outside the 78 Records music store, serviced by staff in a tiny corner booth.

Founded in Perth in the early 1990s, this coffee house has spread throughout Australia and into South East Asia and the Middle East. Visit and you’ll understand why.

Overlook the street from the alfresco area upstairs, or eat downstairs in what has been dubbed “eye candy corner” because you can watch all the beautiful people passing by.

Contemporary Australian and European dishes are served in this airy little café. Sit indoors on bar stools at tall tables – or do the same out on the pavement.

Aptly the name means festival in Japanese. Dine in or, on hot days, eat take-away in the nearby QV1 courtyard where drifting mist from a waterfall may cool you down.

Groovy little coffee bar with mood created by the dark wood fittings and flamboyant Japanese floral wallpaper by the late and legendary designer Florence Broadhurst.

A warehouse-type space combines a café serving picnic-style food with a men’s fashion store. The entry is via an almost hidden, mural-lined passageway ramp.

Winner of the 2009 ARIA for Best Independent Record Store in WA, 78 Records has now acquired eight of these prestigious annual awards. The music collection is most comprehensive and, with the old record format enjoying a revival, 2000+ titles are available on vinyl. Framed band posters, many autographed, are a speciality. To save you cramming purchases in your luggage, stock can be posted anywhere in the world.

If you’re looking for a romance novel or spy thriller give Boffin’s a miss, but if you are seeking any non-fiction specialist book then this is your dream store. Downstairs are the titles dedicated to personal and lifestyle topics – health, gardening, travel, art, architecture, fashion and dozens of other subjects – while upstairs are the technical tomes and manuals covering all knowledge areas from astronomy to automobiles.

Fashions largely based on corsetry are the domain of Burlesque Baby, where touches of punk and goth meet Hollywood-style glamour. There are impossibly, terrifyingly high heels pasted with major bling elements, plus wigs and other accessories for party animals who like to dress up for entertainment on the dramatic and dark side. A warning to drag queens and other exotic creatures – be ready to thrash the credit card.

Look for a sign featuring the white outline of a shock-headed cartoon man and you’ve found Crumpler. Cartoon man apparently started life as the logo of a furniture-maker who subsequently changed direction to open a store stacked with every kind of casual bag from backpack to laptop hold-all. Now the cartoon man is the badge proudly worn by all Crumpler bags. A couple of garden gnomes stand guard on the shop-floor.

Even if you’re not on the prowl for funky clothes and shoes you’ll be mesmerised by the atmosphere at Dilettante. Old brick and ivy-clad walls, chairs suspended above head height, a stuffed animal, a baroque mirror and wire cages as display units all make for an individual approach. And this is just the women’s store … the recently opened and equally dimly-lit and mysterious men’s shop is a couple of doors away.

FORM’s retail space is a white cube which creates a perfect foil for the colours of glass, resin, wood, ceramic and handmade fabric items. It connects with the FORM gallery, an intimate exhibition space hosting the work of Australian artists. At the time of review, in-store jewellery – easy to see in glass-topped tables – included silver cufflinks shaped like legendary outlaw Ned Kelly’s square head and body armour.

Semi-precious stones are Jan Logan’s speciality – and you have to wonder why we call them semi-precious when you see their beauty. The advantage, of course, is that you can spend less than a thousand dollars and walk out with a really big rock on your finger. The jewellery designs are unusual – many of them intricate, too - and the range of stones rarely seen elsewhere will interest anyone who is keen on mineralogy.

Naturally the crisp glass cabinets filled with silvery-white pearls in classic and contemporary settings grab your attention the minute you walk into Kailis – but do check out the décor too, because that colossal orange glass chandelier is a wonder to behold. At the time of review an unusual range featured pearls paired with amber, threaded on fine brown leather for a collection with a more casual effect.

Pearls are Linney’s foundation but there’s also a focus on the marriage between pearls and gemstones - in particular, coloured diamonds from the Kimberley region. Pearls of different hues are favoured, too – choose a string of golden pearls or a mix of subtle smoky pink, mauve-grey and faint peacock-green. A short staircase in the store leads to the altar of pearl worship – the consultation desk for custom designing.

Look along the street for a wooden dressmaker’s manikin swathed in multi-coloured bands of antique fabric – that’s the guardian standing outside Love in Tokyo. Many of the décor items are distinctly oriental and the handmade clothing, although produced in Western Australia, has touches of an eastern influence with silks and some vintage fabrics. The layered and wrapped look in particular is explored to good effect.

You won’t be able to resist the cute tiny clothes if you’ve got a baby or toddler. If you haven’t, you might start trying for a family tonight just for an excuse to spend at Ovest. Customised nursery letters in frames can be ordered. In the giftware range at the time of review were spangled velvet passport holders, rainbow resin chandeliers and many of those other items which none of us knew we wanted until we saw them.

Winner of the 2009 ARIA for Best Independent Record Store in WA, 78 Records has now acquired eight of these prestigious annual awards. The music collection is most comprehensive and, with the old record format enjoying a revival, 2000+ titles are available on vinyl. Framed band posters, many autographed, are a speciality. To save you cramming purchases in your luggage, stock can be posted anywhere in the world.

This little shop is well-named because a big heart beats within. Clothing, bags and other accessories may be the stock in trade – and thanks, Pulse, for displaying shoes at eye level – but there are often novel items. At time of review these included journals, CD holders, photograph albums and so forth – all with covers made from the folded metal licence plates of deregistered vehicles from every Australian state and territory.

With steely black walls and ceiling and a lavishly ornate window, industrial chic meets rococo in the entry to Tarvydas. The interior twilight makes richly coloured gowns glow like neon torches while sequins, sequins and yet more sequins twinkle. Commissioned to clothe Australia’s Miss Universe 2009 entrant, Ruth Tarvydas has also dressed celeb sportsmen’s glam wives and girlfriends to headline-making effect.

Wonderland could almost be a better name for this store where funky international clothing brands are displayed in a gallery space adorned with George Kustorkov’s alloy sculptures. A full-height mural by Sydney artist Ben Frost lines the stairwell. Around the walls is a variety of framed pop art – with some confronting images and social commentaries - by Australian and overseas artists including graffiti masters.

Leopard print is big at Wheels & Dollbaby – it’s clawed its way off the clothes and on to the carpet. Designer Melanie Greensmith has made a global career out of vintage-inspired fabrics. Many clients are the larger-than-life species – think Pink, Kelly Osborne, Dita von Teese - but there’s plenty for the less famous girl who just craves easy yet edgy streetwear, including tops with the company’s original flamboyant logo.

Most girls know shoes aren’t just covers for feet – they’re objects of overpowering desire which make us go weak at the knees when we walk through the door of Melbourne company Wittner. The sheer variety of unashamedly glamorous sky-high heels, fantastical sandals, beaut boots and comfortable yet cute pumps makes the toes curl. Best is the discount area crammed with shoes which are so still-this-season.