Darlinghurst: Retailers: Royalty Prussia Cafe

My friend Ruby Molteno has been urging me to blog about the Royalty Prussia shop on William Street for some time now. Ruby is strangely fascinated by the Royalty Prussia and I must admit it does hold a peculiar - and very small - space in my heart. I suppose it has something to do with its mysterious provenance and unashamed campness. 

Just how Royalty Prussia came to find a home last year among the traffic and street prostitution on William Street - and why it is not located in its spiritual heartland amongst the wealthy of Double Bay - is the first mystery. The second mystery is who runs the shop. The third mystery is who shops there.

Unashamed campness? Simply walk on by its large floor to ceiling windows and you will understand. Royalty Prussia is like a 24-hour, seven day a week party of gilt-dipped, feather-decked over the top campness. The love child of Liberace and Liza Minnelli. A place where Michael Jackson could drop $20 million on a royal-style carriage for Bubbles the chimp - if he was still alive and lived in Sydney. 

But - and I am ashamed to say - I don't really know the true cost of that carriage, which once took pride of place in Royalty Prussia's crowded, eternally lit window. 

And I must admit, that I have never been inside Royalty Prussia, because just passing by its windows was overwhelming enough. 

But that could all be about to change. 

As my spy in the Darlinghurst flatlands, Ruby has been well positioned to observe the recent movements of tradesmen and tradeswomen at Royalty Prussia and this - as well as the signs plastered on the windows - indicate Royalty Prussia is soon to open The Royalty Prussia Cafe. 

And when this happens, Ruby and I will be first at the bar ordering cappuccinos, which will hopefully come served in an ostentatious teacup and saucer befitting the Royalty Prussia aesthetic. 

Royalty Prussia opened on the ground floor of the historic 1926 Chard Building, at 171 William Street, in May last year. It is owned by Isreali-born Galita Yoshia, who as this Sydney Morning Herald article suggests (third item down), is rather fond of retaining the mysterious origins of Royalty Prussia.
Royalty Prussia has not just one, but two websites: one with a .com address, the other with a .com.au address. The two sites are identical and advertise Royalty Prussia's specialty of building and manufacturing exterior and interior designs for ''Luxury Homes, Palaces, Hotels, Yachts and Jets''. 

According to the website Royalty Prussia specialises in ''European-Aristocratic designs with the purpose of reliving the splendour of old times''.

''Our design is influenced by the lives and palatial surroundings of European royalty,'' the website says.

''Our work in art and architecture holds historical value, which today signifies prosperity and affluence.''

Which doesn't explain why they set up shop on the grungy William Street strip. 

And rather than using their website to promote their Darlinghurst showroom - their only showroom as far as I can tell - they instead decorate each web page with that old perfume-advertisement marketing trick:

''Paris. London. Moscow. Monte Carlo. New York. Dubai.''

Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to that cappuccino.

*

Royalty Prussia

171 William Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 9357 5335

www.royaltyprussia.com.au

www.royaltyprussia.com