If the fears of hyperinflation are realized, you'll look back with pride on your luxury purchases. All that money you've sunk into custom jewelry and top-of-the-line stones will make you look like an absolute genius. Well, that's the position of South African billionaire Johann Rupert, and I'd take the advice of a guy who can be described that way.

According to Bloomberg News, the told investors, "If we enter hyperinflation, you're going to be so glad that you bought that stuff two months or six months ago." He added, "If inflation picks up, you're going to see people running into your stores, buying high jewelry."

Will inflation cause a mob to form outside the Cartier store on Fifth Avenue? Well, I don't think I'd worry too much about the pushing and shoving, but being ready to throw an elbow probably isn't a bad idea.

Of course, Rupert has something to gain – his company, Richemont, is the world's second largest luxury goods maker (behind LVMH). In his talk with investors in the company controlled by his family, he forecasted "normal growth" with luxury sales showing signs of recovery this month and next.

A classic Upper East Side Fifth Avenue apartment has hit the market. The New York Observer reports that Broadway producer and director Hal Prince and his wife Judy have put their apartment at 834 Fifth Avenue up for sale. This is one prime unit. The 11-room apartment has Central Park views and a large, plant-filled terrace from which you can watch the Central Park Zoo polar bears. This duplex has a large living room with an adjoining solarium/library and terrace. A formal dining room has been converted to a library with floor-to-ceiling bookcases. A staircase leads to a corner master suite on the second level as well as two other bedrooms and staff quarters. The apartment comes with two separate storage rooms and a private laundry room. Rupert Murdoch also owns a triplex in this building. The apartment is priced at $33 million. The current decor in some rooms might be a bit colorful for some people's taste but for lovers of books and graceful living this looks like paradise in the sky.

I usually feature a New York City home on September 11 since that is where my heart always is on this day. Today's home reflects two key things about Manhattan real estate, its elegance and its falling prices. Cityfile reports that Tony Margolis, who retired as CEO of the Tommy Bahama Group in 2008, has dropped the price of his eighth-floor apartment at 1010 Fifth Avenue for the third time since listing it in January 2008 for for $11.995 million.

The home in one of Manhattan's classic pre-war co-ops has been renovated turning 11 rooms into nine with three full bedrooms. It has a large living room and two of the three bedrooms look out onto the Metropolitan Museum and Central Park. The best room in the house has to be the library with its wood paneling taken from the board room of a Manhattan bank and a flatscreen television mounted into the wall under a wood pediment. The three-bedroom co-op can now be yours for $9.95 million.

On New York City's pricey Fifth Avenue forget Tiffany & Co., the Apple store might just be the hottest address. Bloomberg reported this week that Apple's store on the popular shopping street could have annual sales of more than $350 million. It may just be the highest grossing store on Fifth Avenue beating out stores like Tiffany & Co. and Harry Winston.

Sam Gustin, writing for our sister blog Daily Finance, is skeptical of the figure, saying that the idea that Apple sells around $1 million in merchandise in that store every single day might be a bit of an optimistic number. He interviewed a retail analyst who also expressed a bit of disbelief but entertained that it could be possible. New York City stores are rules unto themselves and the store is located in one of Manhattan's most visited areas and is open 24 hours a day. Also any Apple aficionado in the area will tell you that the store is often packed with people. Also while Tiffany and Harry Winston and other luxury retailers may attract a great deal of window shoppers Apple tends to attract those interested in buying more than looking.

As we mentioned a little while back, the New York Observer recently reported that casino mogul Steve Wynn's New York City apartment was up for sale. Now thanks to a post from the Real Estalker, we found out that the listing has gone live. Wynn's Fifth Avenue palace is a two-bedroom apartment that measures around 3,500 square feet.

Steve and Elaine Wynn are getting a divorce (actually it's their second divorce, they were first married in 1963 but divorced in 1986 and then remarried five years later). Their full-floor apartment was once a four bedroom home but the renovation trimmed the number of rooms and expanded the spaces with an eye toward the grand and bland. The main living area was once the living room, formal dining room and library and has views over Central Park. The master suite was created from three bedrooms and has his and hers bathrooms.

As the floor plan reveals the resulting layout is a bit odd. The master bedroom has been placed next to the living room to take advantage of the best views but this means that the two bathrooms are sequential rather than side by side. The kitchen is directly opposite the second master bathroom and the dining room has been shoved to the back of the apartment right in front of the laundry and utility areas. The home has been redone in shades that design books likely refer to as variations of honey, taupe, caramel and rattan but mostly it's just beige, elegant, but beige and with a hotel's anonymity. Particularly curious is the kitchen which seems to have matching granite floors and counters. The apartment is priced at an outrageous $25 million but it seems doubtful that the Wynns will get their price.

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A row of cars waiting for a green light was concealed by four large canvases proceeding across New York's busy Fifth Ave., creating the appearance of emptiness from W. 51st St to Central Park and beyond. Artist Nelson Diaz chose Palm Sunday to reveal his latest project, "The Isolated Christ," to the people of New York. The response to this unique mix of street art, performance art and oil on canvas was nothing short of astounding.

Five years in the making, The Isolated Christ is a four-part rendering of the most famous figure in one of Leonardo Da Vinci's most recognized works. Diaz "isolated" the image of Jesus Christ from the apostles in DaV inci's "The Last Supper" and plotted thousands of points on the image by hand. Then, using advanced calculus techniques, he fed the point into an equation that exposes "hidden" four dimensional space in the original image and used the results as the foundation for his signature perspective.

The result is four faces of DaVinci's Jesus, reflecting various situations. The final canvas – transcendence – offers an obscure, almost headless presentation, signifying the departure from the norm. The meaning is left to the viewer, with the religious assuming resurrection and the atheist likely to posit obsolescence. Diaz remains coy with his intention, believing that interpretation (like faith) is a personal affair.

With half a decade spent on the vision and production of The Isolated Christ (all four paintings were completed by hand – sans brushes, literally with his fingers), Diaz spent the last few months struggling with venue. He decided last summer to skip the traditional alternatives (such as art galleries) during his protest against the treatment of art as a commodity, during which he auctioned 10 paintings on eBay for the princely starting bid of $1 each.

"The old way of doing things is dead," he explained during several of our meetings. Deep-pocketed buyers writing checks for pieces they don't understand, he believed, would not be able to sustain itself ... a lesson to which the art market was treated last September. Diaz wanted a public setting. As with his eBay experiment, he wanted to return the aesthetic to everybody, not a self-proclaimed elite.

That left only one "gallery" from which to choose: the streets of Manhattan.

Last week we reported that Russian billionaire Andrei Vavilov, who signed a $53.5 million contract sight unseen for an ultra-luxe penthouse at New York's famed Fifth Avenue hotel-turned-apartment building The Plaza (above), sued the developers claiming the finished product was an "attic-like" tenement. Now the Wall St. Journal reports that a second Plaza penthouse buyer has filed a claim on similar grounds, alleging fraud and misrepresentation on the part of the Plaza's developer El-Ad and its real estate agents. The buyer, who has not been identified, is demanding the return of a $6.5 million deposit plus legal fees of at least $350,000, according to the complaint filed in New York Supreme Court. In a statement, El-Ad dismissed the claims as vain attempts on the part of buyers with cold feet to "back out" of their deals.

UPDATE: El-Ad has now filed a counter-suit against Vavilov for libel, seeking $36 million in damages.

Russian billionaire Andrei Vavilov, who signed a $53.5 million contract sight unseen for an ultra-luxe penthouse at New York's famed Fifth Avenue hotel-turned-apartment building The Plaza (above), is suing the developers claiming the finished product is more like a tenement. Vavilov made the purchase prior to completion of the Plaza's $500 million renovations last year based on CAD models and a video presentation, which promised the residence would be the "epitome of luxury."

However, in a just-filed lawsuit, Vavilov accuses Plaza devloper El-Ad Properties and real estate agents Stribling & Associates of pulling a "bait-and-switch" in which they secretly made "unilateral and impermissible design changes" to the plans, the London Telegraph reports. He claims they made the apartment smaller, shrank the size of its windows and lowered the ceilings turning it into an "attic-like" garret instead of an elegant aerie.

Vavilov, who reportedly made $600 million six years ago when he sold his Russian oil company, Severnaya Neft, is demanding the return of the $10.7 million deposit he has already paid out and wants at least $20 million in damages for alleged breach of contract, fraud, deceptive trading practices and negligence. A lawyer for the defendants described his claims as "baseless".

Times may be tough but that isn't stopping luxury brands from expanding their stores in New York City especially at the popular addresses of Fifth and Madison Avenues. The International Herald Tribune reports that on Fifth several new stores will be opening soon including a new flagship for Tommy Hilfiger, Giorgio Armani 40,000-square-foot palace of neutral-toned elegance at 56th Street, and Abercrombie & Fitch taking 25,000 square feet of the Brooks Brothers location at 53rd Street. On Madison, Calvin Klein has expanded and Hermes is opening a new men's store near its existing location.

Why the push on space when the economy in New York is sluggish? For luxury stores having a big store is an important part of their branding, a chance to translate the message of the label into a physical space. Having a large store with a small amount of merchandise highlighted in the store has long been the luxury model whereas stores that sell things with a lower price point often stuff the shelves and racks with merchandise. The IHT article quotes achitect Kenneth Walker, a retail design and branding expert, who says that the empty space subliminally sends a message that the store is luxurious and also the implied scarcity may increase the desire for a product. Brands also seek space on Fifth Avenue because the address alone implies luxury and even when people are shopping less a good location is seen as a long-term investment. The economy may rise and fall but the reputation of New York's famous shopping blocks remains strong for now.

The Times of London has come up with a new list of the world's 10 richest streets based on property prices. The most expensive street on the globe, unsurprisingly, is in ultra-rich Monaco - Avenue Princess Grace, to be exact, where average prices run about $17,000 per sq. ft. It's a pretty safe bet that anyone with an address there is a millionaire at the very least. In second place is Severn Road in Hong Kong's Victoria Peak district (above), where the average price is about $11,000 per sq. ft. Here are the rest of the runners-up:
No. 3 - Fifth Avenue, New York
No. 4 - Kensington Palace Gardens, London
No. 5 - Avenue Montaigne, Paris
No. 6 - Ostozhenka, Moscow
No. 7 - Via Suvretta, St, Mortiz, Switzerland
No. 8 - Carolwood Drive, Beverly Hills
No. 9 - Wolseley Road, Sydney, Australia
No. 10 - Altamount Road, Mumbai, India

Today's home brings up the age-old question, when does a woman outgrow the love of pink everything. If you check out fashion designer Betsey Johnson's New York apartment the answer seems to be that you can live in Barbie's dream apartment well into your dotage. The aging designer is preternaturally bouncy and giddy for her age but still perhaps even she has grown weary of her two-bedroom penthouse. The loft in the Gold Coast area of Fifth Avenue is described in the listing as a "lavishly presented confection of fifties Hollywood glamour trimmed in lace, velvet, and gold tassels." Underneath there somewhere is a rather nice apartment with great views and a nice roof deck. It's just hard to see for all the flounce. It is listed at $3.6 million. The listing pics are pretty small but Radar has them bigger.

For another look at Betsey's home decorating style, check out Betseyville, her Mexican getaway home which is available for rent.

David H. Koch, number 33 on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's billionaires, is selling up to accommodate his growing family and putting his 1040 Fifth Avenue apartment on the market. The apartment occupies the entire 15th floor of the building and was once owned by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Koch purchased it in 1995 for $9.5-million and spent and estimated $5-10 million on renovations. He and his wife felt they needed a larger space to raise what will be their third child, though the apartment at 1040 Fifth has four bedrooms, two dressing rooms, a staff room, a library, living room, dining room, conservatory, two terraces, three fireplaces, five and a half bathrooms and a wine room. The family is moving to 740 Park, which Koch says is a duplex twice the size of the Onassis apartment. The asking price is $32 million.

[Photo NYT]