Inside Chanel's Black Pyramid

So I entered the pyramid on its last day but one. Chanel Fine Jewelry it reads outside, so you can expect no haute couture nor perfumes of any number inside. After crossing the quasi-medieval drawing bridge, and going past one of the many burly security guards, you enter a semi-dark room, and the first thing you see is the effigy of a reclining woman. But that is just decoration. Look around and you’ll see the jewelry, the luxurious necklaces and rings, a row of emeralds, rubies. This is the kind of place where, if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.
The most interesting feature to me was the table in the middle. I could only compare it to a black lake, with the pieces of jewelry moving around on circular magnets across the surface. Fascinating, because I’m not technical enough to figure out by myself how it works. Then there’s also footage of a horse, stables, fields. For some reason, that film attracted the attention of the public inside, several of them speaking Japanese.
Tomorrow evening, the doors to the pyramid will close, and, the ladies inside told me, the structure will disappear forever. Until the Grand Formosa Regent finds another brand willing to use the space in front of the hotel.

Taipei 101: The War of the Bags

As the glitzy shopping mall at the foot of the world’s tallest building, Taipei 101, gets filled up with the toniest boutiques, the local media are starting to focus on what’s on sale. And handbags are the product of the moment. More precisely, special edition handbags, only for sale in Taiwan.
Christian Dior is selling white and black Hardcore bags with metal plates carrying the figures 101. Celine is selling 101 wine-colored Boogie bags numbered from one to 101, with early candidates getting the right to pick the lucky numbers, such as 88, the United Daily News fashion section writes.
The Louis Vuitton shop often attracts so many sightseeers they have to be kept waiting in a line outside, which is good for visibility. And now, even more visitors could come and drop by to admire, not a handbag, but a specially designed bag to put your iPod in.
Gucci is not competing in the exclusivity stakes, but instead, offers special cushions, sheets, chairs and wallpaper.
Just a stone throw from Taipei 101, at one of the numerous Shin Kong Mitsukoshi department stores, Fendi is playing the Spy game. The Spy bags come in a variety of materials, crocodile skin, leather, with different motifs, creating a range of 40 different models. Prices range from 70,000 to 190,000 New Taiwan dollars, the United Daily News writes. For those of you not familiar with Taiwan’s currency, one U.S. dollar is about 31 NT, so the bags cost from 2,300 to 6,000 US.
Returning to the Taipei 101 mall, but leaving the subject of handbags, the latest superbrand to open up shop is Bulgari, the Italian purveyor of high end jewelry. The Taipei 101 outlet is their fifth store in Taiwan.
The Chanel exhibition on Chungshan North Road? No, I didn’t forget, that’s for my next posting.

Isabelle and Chanel

Isabelle Wen, one of Taiwan’s most famous designers, held her 2005 Spring/Summer Show in Taipei this month. For her inspiration, she took the Amazon and Latin America. The show _ dubbed “South of the Equator” _ featured women with fiercely painted eyes carrying exotic birds on their arms. The colors of the dresses were mostly greyish blue, though some red also filtered through. Wen launched her brand in the mid-1980s and has since built her reputation as one of the strongest designers on the island, with a chain of stores to boot.
Talking of stores, strollers on Taipei’s Chungshan North Road used to the trees separating the busy thoroughfare from the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel got a rude shock recently. The trees have been hacked away to make way for a temple to luxury. A bizarre black pyramid-type structure bearing the magic word “Chanel.” Inside, a temporary exhibition of Chanel jewelry. The building looks like one of those temporary wooden structures set up in Taiwan to sell apartments. After a while, the structure is taken down, and the apartment building goes up in its place. What will happen to the Chanel pyramid after the exhibition closes on March 25? Come back and find out next week, when I will post about what’s inside the pyramid.