A tiny Brentwood outpost for European gear

The globetrotting man of leisure can quickly amass a trove of unique treasures through his travels, but is that lifestyle really worth it, what with the taking off of the shoes, the emptying of the pockets, and the rotting in a Rangoon jail watching Patricia Arquette getting fatter and fatter? Instead, just get worldly gear in your own backyard, from Monocle.Monocle's an incomprehensibly tiny, 115sqft London import, started by the same-named UK design/culture mag and delivering a carefully managed collection of upmarket gear from 'round the globe, curated in a stark, large-windowed interior that reflects the shop's focus, with Danish shelving and magazine feature photos of a Japanese sumo match. The crux of the stock is collabs between the mag and its international allies, ranging from a multi-bag collab w/ Japan's renowned Porter, to a limited-edition birchwood stool w/ elk leather upholstery from Finland's Artek, to mid-thigh buckle-strapped swim trunks from London-based Orlebar, also the name of an even more fiendish pool floater than the Baby Ruth. They've also got a tiny-but-growing collection of non-collabs, currently limited to cardigans and scarves from vaunted UK sweaterist John Smedley, and a range of unique CDs, including jazzy hip hop from Tokyo's DJ Deckstream, and a disc with stripped-down percussion and acoustic-laced covers of French covers of movie themes, from "Flashdance" to "Eye of The Tiger", which famously got Rocky pumped to battle Jean-Clubber LeLang.Of course, Monocle also stocks every back issue of its namesake magazine, a great way to transport yourself around the world from the comfort of your couch, as your sloth creeps your Medium up to a large.