Collection I: Ideas For A Good Living

Collection i is choc-a-bloc with 'Ideas For A Good Living'. However, whether you can afford these 'ideas' or not will be directly proportional to your purchasing power, and perhaps even to your state of mind and your mood as you stroll and scout.

Maximising its position as one of the only two stores located on the 4th floor of City Center (it is e-zone's neighbour), the store plays on your mood visually, uplifting your spirit as you walk through its electronically monitored doors, and focus.

Collection i is spotless and spacious. Its displays shine vibrantly, the surfaces sharper, curvier, smoother, the array of colors more vivid under the unforgiving glare of sunlight (replaced by bright artificial lighting around dusk) streaming in from windows running through the store's length. These days, the strong light is reined in, barricaded by cheery branded curtains coming from Collection i's own stock (a set of four from 'Mela' costs Rs. 800).

Now that you have fallen for the form of this home furnishings, interiors and decor store hook, line and sinker, move toward the substance, for there is plenty of that, too.

In the decor wing lie several things in various shapes, sizes, fabrics and metals - photo frames, lamps, flower vases, mats, durries, candles, candle-stands, pots, decorative stone pouches, air fresheners, trays, paintings and what-have-you. The features that unite them? All items bear remarkably contemporary looks, and are slightly pricey. Even a small bunch of fake flowers costs Rs. 60.

'Contemporary', in fact, is unanimously the mantra here. In the furnishings and interiors wing, the designs are unapologetically modernistic - the bedsheets (durries, too) are stamped with bold hues and patterns, and the beds they stretch on so comfortably will also attract the urban buyer with a taste for contempo furniture.

The furniture is also designed with covert storage spaces, keeping in mind space constraints in urban homes. There are warm wood storage cabinets, with in-built lighting, smoothly carved wooden cupboards and chests with several drawers, glass and chrome dining table sets, and queen-size beds (and bunk-beds) veneered in beech. Then there are sofa sets, in leather, wood and other varieties, and entire modular kitchen sets that seem to ask for a photo-shoot.

Some of the furniture is imported from other countries (one being Malaysia), but all of them belong in ultramodern homes. And nothing here, or anywhere in Collection i, is inexpensive, although you will find great deals during sale-time (sales are semi-annual here); a huge, comfortable sofa set, inclusive of five pieces, will be priced at Rs. 39,000 (as opposed to the original Rs. 65,000) during sales.

If the weighty price tags here bring you down, remember that Collection i is less expensive than other stores selling similar ware - for example @home, which is across the road. Now if that doesn't satisfy you into a purchase, we really don't know what will.