By JONATHAN CHANCELLOR
Woollahra's Queen Street is fast becoming fashion central as its Dickensian antique dealers depart.
Martyn Cook, the street's most ubiquitous antique dealer, has sounded his retreat with plans to open later this year in Redfern.
Aside from its still-intact foodie precinct, the leafy Woollahra village is now more about hemlines, haute couture and maternity wear than regency furniture, Louis XV commodes and longcase clocks.
Its landlords are seeking $100,000-plus annual rentals from the more robust fashion industry players for the shopfront premises. The yields mostly range between 3 to 5 per cent.
Herringbone and Saba are neighbours with top-shelf retailers Quincy shoes and John Cavill.
There's the Brunello Cucinelli cashmere store and Mother Baby Child maternity wear.
Little wonder that Kellie Hush, the Herald's fashion editor, is regularly en route to the boulevard.
M.J. Bale, the tailored menswear label, will open this month after a Kelvin Ho fitout that includes recycled blackbutt floors, Tasmanian oak shelves and hessian panelling.
The shop of the late antiques dealer William Bradshaw, who was in the business for 68 years, has been tenanted to Jacardi, the childrens' clothing store from Paris, following its recent $2.7 million sale.
Bradshaw, who once suggested it wasn't antique furniture unless it preceded the 1830s, had paid £2470 for the shop in 1957.
After 20 years, Martyn Cook and the interior decorator Thomas Hamel, who share their leased Queen Street premises, will relocate to an 1891 heritage building, the Redfern Electric Light Station with 1042square metres of space.
Cook's first foray into antiques was at Paul Kenny's in Redfern before Kenny opened in Hargrave Street, Paddington. So some 28 years later, Cook returns to Redfern.
The Queen Street shop - owned by the Roche family of Adelaide who paid $1.02 million in 1990, with a 6.1 per cent yield - is set for auction on May 25 through its Richardson & Wrench Commercial agents Ben Vaughan and Bernard McGrath. There are $4.5 million-plus hopes for the showroom which comes with 240 square metres of space.
The decorator Ros Palmer, who has helped furnish the Lodge in Canberra, has her nearby premises listed for May 18 auction with $4 million hopes.
Last month the beauty bar Polished opened with the hope of tapping into the yummy-mummy crowd along with the cashed-up corporates.
Quincy owner Kate McDiven says the street appealed because of its beauty and friendliness. One of the longest tenanted shopkeepers is Anne Schofield, who opened her antique jewellery shop in 1968, then helped save the street from being turned into a thoroughfare.
She remains along with other high-culture exponents: the antiquarian bookseller Tim McCormick, art dealer Reginald Irwin and the antique dealers Howell & Howell, who have a $38,000 French bronze table in their front window.
Long gone are the emporiums of Marie Shakespeare, Grant Robert, Peter Code, Appley Hoare, Copeland and de Soos, Auchinachie & Son and Robert Morrison.