Taiwan July/August

Back in Taipei from Beijing, I had to face several disasters of a non-fashion nature. A typhoon raging through town - you read about that in my "Gucci Misery" posting - a total computer breakdown, and a camera breakdown. The typhoon is gone, and I'm still working on the computer and camera nightmares. As sympathetic readers pointed out, this blog could do with pictures, and that will be my priority for August once all the technical problems have been worked out. Fortunately, Taipei has a major computer expo this weekend, so this will help me a lot.

Taiwan fashion in late July? The island's top design house Shiatzy Chen presented its collections for Autumn/Winter 2005, and both Patty Hou in her TVBS fashion report and the Taiwan News in its Saturday fashion pages paid attention to the event. Shiatzy Chen is famous for its clothes inspired by traditional Chinese styles, and its exalted position in Taiwan's fashion scene is made clear by the location of its main boutique - between the unfortunate Gucci and the reconstructed Louis Vuitton on the toniest part of Chungshan North Road.

The new collection went beyond the Asian styles to reach back to the 1950s - Hou mentioned Audrey Hepburn as an inspiration for the women's clothes. High waistlines reflected the trend prevalent at Europe's autumn/winter fashion events.

The show also marked the first time that Shiatzy Chen presented shoes and bags, after remarks from customers that they couldn't find the right attributes to match the clothes. A dark green bag in crocodile leather was the main attention-catcher at the show, with the same color also evident in many of the coats, dresses and shirts.

On TVBS, Hou also mentioned the introduction in Taiwan of pop star Gwen Stefani's LAMB collection of athletic garb.

Looking ahead to August, apart from trying to fixing the problems mentioned above, the course on brands I am taking at the Eslite Book Store has - as I expected - been politely asked not to take its students on a visit to Gucci after the typhoon burglary there. Since the new Louis Vuitton close by has not been completed yet, the Eslite course has decided to have us go on a tour of stores at Taipei 101. The most recent class, by the way, discussed the craze for exclusive bags, with Balenciaga's motorcycle bag as an example. In one of my next postings, I will also discuss a Taiwanese magazine I bought this week, "Brand."

Beijing is Wangfujing

I just returned to Taiwan from Beijing, where, so people tell me, this blog is not available to the average Internet surfer, probably because of the name of the island in its title. That's politics, and even though my blog stays clear of the subject, it has still fallen victim to political suspicions. In Beijing, I didn't have much time for fashion, but I did visit a couple of the new malls, mainly to find refuge from the 38 degree heat. Too many small bars and restaurants, sympathetic though they are, still have to do without airconditioning.

So off to the malls it was, and by far my favorite was the Oriental Plaza near Wangfujing, Beijing's main shopping street just blocks away from Tiananmen Square and a 20-minute walk from my hotel. During my one-month stay, the Oriental Plaza - developed by Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing, became synonymous to me with Wangfujing, and maybe even with Beijing. The mall covers two floors, with the cheaper-end clothing stores and food stores on the underground level, and the more expensive shops on the first-floor level.

The Oriental Plaza has many famous brand names: Kenzo, Burberry, Pal Zileri, Max Mara, but also Chinese brands, such as Ne Tiger with its flamboyant evening dresses and the dark Shanghai Xu with its classical Chinese designs. My wife's favorite was Paul Smith because of his colorful flowers and stripes, even though I'm too conservative a man to be a fan of his. My preference went to the light suits at Pal Zileri and a stunning shirt with a green floral design at Valentino's. The price tag: 3,980 renminbi, or some 16,000 New Taiwan dollars, say 500-something US dollars.

The Plaza also counts four car dealerships: Rolls Royce, which hides its cars out of view on the second floor, Lamborghini, Volkswagen, and my favorite, Audi, where locals admire the Audi TT roadster, a red A4 convertible, the new A6, and a classic car from the 1930s.

The new Beijing has more shopping malls, but none of them seem to be as lively or high-class as the Oriental Plaza. On weekends by the way, the Plaza is the scene for promotional actions for everything from Bailey's Irish Cream to Taiwanese Weichuan yoghurt.

Beijing also has a Sogo but it's not at the center of a shopping district, as Taipei's Sogo is. West of Tiananmen you have the Xidan area, which is quite "renao" or lively, especially for younger shoppers. Back east, there is the World Trade Center or Guomao, a luxury mall with an indoor ice skating rink and a whole range of shops, including a Chloe boutique still being prepared. What I missed though were the lively crowds from the Oriental Plaza. Even on a late Saturday afternoon, the Guomao seemed deserted. My last mall destination was the Lufthansa Shopping Center in the direction of the airport, but that was a bit of a letdown. The center is really a traditional department store.

One destination I can well recommend, even though it is not a shopping area per se, is the 798 Art Zone near Dashanzi, also in the northeast of town, in the direction of the airport. Apart from art galleries, the zone also counts small stores, some of them selling clothes by local designers.

Gucci Misery

A typhoon is passing through town, trees lie slain on the sidewalk, plastic signboard ripped to pieces. What are you going to think when you see a store window shattered to pieces? Smashed up by the typhoon, precisely. But in the case of the Gucci flagship store on Taipei's Chungshan North Road earlier this week, you would've been wrong. A gang of clever thieves used the cover of Typhoon Haitang to break into the store and make off with 2 million New Taiwan dollars' worth of goods. Security? The cameras didn't capture any footage of the thieves, and anyway, they're the type where the tapes have to be replaced manually. Alarm system? It worked, but the security guards back at HQ thought the typhoon did it. So they didn't bother to come and check up on the site until hours later. But lest there be any Schadenfreude from other luxury brands in Taipei, a jewelry store just blocks away was emptied the same way, at around the same time. The fashion course I'm taking at the Eslite bookstore was considering visiting Gucci as a practical field trip. I guess the brand is probably no longer too happy to see many outsiders coming in, but we'll see. By the way, the most recent class in that course also fell victim to the typhoon. But then I would have missed the class anyway because I was on my way back from Beijing. More about that in my next posting.