Developers bring in top homeware brands and raise the bar on luxury homes

For the one per cent, their second, third or fifth homes in London, Los Angeles or New York are interchangeable - another palatial flat with Four Seasons-level amenities.

But bring in a luxury fashion brand and suddenly a property looks a lot more interesting, as developers are realising.

These designer-developer alliances are popping up everywhere: under construction in Dubai are the Palazzo Versace Residences, opulent homes where the furniture is overstuffed and framed in gold. At the other end of the design spectrum is the 20 Pine Collection in New York, whose interiors were done in minimalist cool by Armani Casa, the furniture arm of the Giorgio Armani empire.

And in Berlin, Tomas Maier, the creative director of Bottega Veneta, is working on Eisenzahn 1, a 12-residence building. It is the first such project of Maier in conjunction with Ralf Schmitz, a 150-year-old German property firm.

Maier is helping design the common spaces and lobby, weighing in on what materials should be used for the floor, the colour of the walls and which Bottega Veneta Home furnishings will be used.

Berlin is having a real estate renaissance; Eisenzahn 1 will be a throwback to the grand residences that lined Berlin's wide thoroughfares in the 1920s, says Daniel Schmitz, a fifth generation scion of the company. Six residences in the building, to be completed by autumn 2016, have already sold.

"Tomas corresponds well with our aesthetic," says Schmitz. "That there is the involvement of Bottega Veneta is an important factor - it's something that makes the whole project unique."