Archive for February 2009
VCA
Image from Van Cleef & Arpels
Wuhan
Just returned from my trip visiting a client. It was my first time in a midwestern Chinese city. Wuhan is very interesting – a purely Chinese city untainted by any outside influences. No colonial architecture, no Cyrillic signs on buildings, and very rare sightings of westerners. It’s like Haidian without the exchange students!
The ride from the airport to my client was over an hour. They dispatched a car for me, which really made me happy because I happen to *love* car rides in the passenger seat. I had the chance to see the city by gazing out the window. Some highlights: a gaudy karaoke joint named “King of Kings”; a men’s casualwear retail store named “Enter Europe/走进欧洲”. Oh the charm!
I could not understand the Hubei dialect, and so very much like Shanghai, I felt like a foreigner in my own country. Also very much like Shanghai, it’s one of those “southern” cities without central heating – making for cold cold winters. At my client’s office, there was no heating either, so all the workers wore fur-trimmed coats in the office. After the meeting, I went back to the hotel to take out my stuff from my bag, and they were as cold as cubes of ice.
I asked my driver what is there to do in Wuhan, and he had some well-intentioned but unhelpful suggestions. First, he recommended going to see some nature. I declined, because alas, I come from southern Virginia where so-called nature runs rampant. Second, he suggested the New World mall. Again, I polited refused because I spent years in the US of A, where capitalism flourishes. At that moment, I realized how far I am from my own country and its goals. Things that he, as a local, considers as achievements, such as the preservation of nature and commercialization, are to me commonplace and boring. To my own surprise, I have become one of those people (most often foreigners) who advocate the preservation of Hutongs, because they are cool, even if they are the anti-economic-development.
And that completes my first time in a second tier Chinese city. I wish I had a partner in crime (or just some really good earmuffs) to explore it more. But alas, work and play rarely mix. I hope to see more of it next time.
When others zig, Carmen zags
At a time when some designers have been careful not to show anything too over-the-top so as not to scare off the wallet-watching customer, Mr. Valvo has gone in the opposite direction — some of his fall 2009 dresses are more gilded, embellished and opulent than usual. Luxe-looking metallic lace was generously sprinkled across the collection; one cocktail dress featured shiny silver, disc-shaped paillettes swathed in a bubbly tulle overlay while another pale pink number was so similarly enveloped in a soft whirlwind of silk tulle that the eveningwear designer dubbed it his “Cotton Candy” dress.
…
In a business move that’s not entirely in keeping with the current downturn, Mr. Valvo is raising some of his prices for fall, a season in which designers like Badgley Mischka and Monique Lhuillier are lowering prices in order to nudge shoppers to spend. Mr. Valvo, whose cocktail dresses usually retail for $1,300 to $1,800, will be selling some $2,400 styles this fall. His fall evening gown collection, which is usually priced between $2,000 and $3,200, will include a few pieces that are priced at $4,000. (He notes that he is lowering the prices of about 20% of his diffusion line of day — and eveningwear, which is sold at retailers like Neiman Marcus, however.)
For my Honey
The State of the Economy
WHO among us, man or woman, rich or less than rich, fashion reporter or prostitute, cannot relate to the “Pretty Woman” experience of walking into a designer boutique and being made to feel unwelcome by a snooty salesclerk?
It’s nothing personal. A former employee of the Yves Saint Laurent shop on Madison Avenue once confided that it is a common and effective practice to size up a customer by looking at two simple things: his watch and his shoes. If the accessories are not expensive, he is not worth the effort of even a simple hello.
But the recession has quickly transformed the attitude of the Madison Avenue work force from impenetrable to inviting, seemingly overnight. Salesclerks, haunted by the papered-over windows of stores next door, are being trained to exude a level of customer service rivaling that of Disney.
MaxMara, for instance, recently held employee seminars on enhancing the shopping experience of anyone who walks through the front door, and it has been reported that other stores are making more effort to greet and engage. Any potential credit card holder, it would seem, can be treated like a star.
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Within 30 seconds of walking into Chanel’s fine jewelry store at 735 Madison Avenue, I had a $4,500 black ceramic J12 watch snapped onto my wrist and a cheerful salesman telling me he had just read a book that claimed men who wore big, chunky watches were often remembered by those who met them as being taller than they actually are. I had walked in wearing a digital watch that cost less than $3 (made by Acqua, if you’ll excuse my name-dropping), which was placed gingerly on a velvet tray.
- Eric Wilson for the International Herald Tribune, Feb. 18, 2009
Kiton
“A store like Saks needs to have the best product available,” Mr. Frasch said. “And I do think the man who wants to present himself in a certain way, he’s still out there.”
In a recession, a luxury retailer like Saks must walk a razor’s edge between lowering operating costs to survive a slowdown in consumer spending and maintaining its status as a purveyor of elite brands.
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Small, costly details of tailoring mark the brand. Unlike many suit jackets, Kiton’s have “surgeon’s cuffs,” or buttons that open at the wrist. Some customers keep a couple of them undone as a subtle status symbol. But Mr. Collins, who owns a Kiton jacket, described that as a gauche habit.
“It’s a really ostentatious thing to do,” he said. “The tasteful thing to do is to have them and never open them.”
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The Kiton shop at Saks is not, however, a counterintuitive recession strategy but part of a broader men’s department facelift that has been going on for more than two years. Construction and manufacturing delays pushed back its opening. And while the timing may be inauspicious, Mr. Ott said Saks was investing in Kiton for the long term.
“I think at Saks Fifth Avenue, we’ve been here through tough times before,” he said. Part of the luxury goods business, perhaps especially in hard times, is playing to customers’ fantasies.
- Stephanie Rosenbloom in the New York Times, Feb. 13, 2009
Ruffles
The one things girls can wear, that guys can never. Unless, of course, if one is a pirate.
Not usually a fan of over-embellishment, I do enjoy a interestingly-placed ruffle from time to time. Ruffles are popping up everywhere this season. And I do mean everywhere: on shoulders, on thighs, on butts – in some cases…
*All from Net-a-Porter
Coffee with a Certain Someone
Had coffee with the CEO of a certain prominent Hong Kong department store. If I had it my way, I would have asked simply: “How can I be you!?!?” But no, I employed slightly more tact than my usual bluntness.
Main takeaway: do everything more than what the company expects. *Have a brain.*
Main caveat: be on the ground where the action is, rather than focusing on the theory and school. So much depends on being at the right place and at the right time, therefore naturally one becomes the right person.
Pablo on Women
‘Women are machines for suffering,” Picasso told his mistress Françoise Gilot in 1943. Indeed, as they embarked on their nine-year affair, the 61-year-old artist warned the 21-year-old student: “For me there are only two kinds of women, goddesses and doormats“.
For me, there are only two kinds of women:
- those who paint their nails red, and those who paint them pink
- those who wear pointy-toed shoes, and those who wear round-toes
- those who know what they are doing, and those who have no idea
HK v. SH
Today in HK is extra hot. I was literally running around in a tank top and flip flops – hello summer! Went to hot yoga again today and almost *died* in the room. Did feel extra good though. Went to MIX afterwards for one of those juice mix things – a very healthy day in general. Here is to making up for everything else!
Now that relocation to Shanghai is on my mind, I go through the day counting all the little things that I will miss if I left HK. It’s all the inconsequential little things, such as the walk down Hollywood Road, hot yoga, my Blackberry, my Honey. I wish to become long-sighted enough to be this appreciative of everything on a day-to-day basis, because, as we all know, all good things come to an end. For example: Life magazine, the roaring nineties, love – usually.
