Hong Kong’s Severn Road, a winding street of mansions and tony apartments, is still the priciest address on the planet.

For the second year running, Financial News has determined that properties on Severn Road cost more per square foot than those anywhere else.

Properties on Severn Road were valued at US$78,200 a square meter (about US$8,689 a square foot), up from US$70,000 in last year’s survey.

It could be a queue for a pop concert, a top nightclub or even the opening night at the theatre. But the hundreds of people lined up in a Hong Kong street are actually waiting to bag a bit of luxury.

“We’re looking for new handbags,” says student Celeste Law as she queues patiently alongside her friend Karina Luh outside the supermarket-sized branch of Chanel on Hong Kong’s Canton Road.

The students, both 20, already sport impressive accessories — Celeste carries a Louis Vuitton monogrammed bag, while her friend’s is from Chanel.

A measure of any Asian businessman is the time he keeps and, far more importantly, the watch he wears to mark it.

A handshake can be soft or firm but will likely soon be followed by a glance to the wrist to see the watch wrapped around it, especially in China.

A heavy slab of gold could be a marker that the person is from an inland city. A more expensive, understated watch could be a sign that they’re from the coastal cities of Shanghai, Shenzhen or Beijing.

China will be the world’s biggest luxury goods market by 2020 as its economy booms and an emerging middle class spends a growing chunk of their cash on high-end items.

Over the next decade, Chinese consumers — including a surging number of billionaires — will account for 44 percent of global spending on goods such as bags, vehicles, watches, shoes and clothes, the report by brokerage CLSA said.

The nation’s luxury goods sector was worth $25 billion in 2009, or about 10% of the world market, including purchases by consumers in HK, Macau and Taiwan.

The Wing airport lounge at Hong Kong International Airport has been chosen as the best in the world by guidebook publisher Frommers.

In a guide compiled for USA Today, Frommer’s picked the world’s top ten executive lounges, putting Cathay Pacific‘s 4,500 square meter facility in first place.

Reserved for Cathay’s first and business class passengers, the lounge offers individual bath and shower rooms with their own minibars.

Louis Vuitton and Yana Peel hosted an “Art for Baby” opening reception on 18th January 2011 at Espace Louis Vuitton Hong Kong.

The “Art for Baby” exhibition brought together in celebration of the Asia launch of the highly-acclaimed book by the same name.

It showcases the 20th century’s most prolific painters from America, Europe and Asia, with works by Damien Hirst, Gary Hume, Julian Ope and Takashi Murakami.