Melbourne's new Hotel Chadstone: Shopping bags full of style

Once retail therapists were content to encourage us to "shop till you drop" but now they've gone one better, or worse, depending on your perspective on shopping, effectively imploring us to "shop till you flop".

Take, for example, the $130 million, stunningly-designed 250-room Hotel Chadstone, which recently opened on the same site as the gargantuan, 550-store-strong Chadstone Shopping Centre, the self-styled fashion capital in the midst of Melbourne suburbia.

One of the newest members of Accor's global MGallery by Sofitel brand of characterful establishments, the uber glamorous 12-storey hotel means that dedicated shoppers from near and far now have their own five-star designer crash pad.

What's more, it's directly connected to the shopping centre, so you can plonk both yourself and your designer purchases in comfort at the end of a torrid day's retail therapy.

Just to add to your shopping list, the hotel also boasts the equally chic Pastore, the latest, Italian-influenced restaurant by the high-profile Melbourne chef Scott Pickett, of Estelle and Saint Crispin fame, with an emphasis on woodfire-style cooking

There's also the inviting Altus rooftop bar-cum-club lounge as well as a sleek adjacent indoor pool, replete with chic Balinese-style cabanas and recliners and panoramas across the red-tiled suburban houses of Port Phillip Bay.

From $290 for a classic room. See hotelchadstone.com.au; accorhotels.com; chadstone.com.au

Anthony Dennis stayed as a guest of the hotel.