Perforated in Taichung

With a title like this, is this blog still dealing with fashion? Yes, it is, because the major fashion event of the week in Taiwan was the opening of a large Louis Vuitton store in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung, and its main attraction was the launch in Taiwan of the Monogram Perfo handbag series.
Louis Vuitton and designer Marc Jacobs have to keep coming up with something new every season to keep interest in their bags high. Way back we had the Stephen Sprouse graffiti bags, then Jacobs recruited Japanese cartoon maestro Takashi Murakami, who turned the logo bag into a clash of color. Last year, Murakami came up with the cherry bag, over the winter we had the denim bags, and now is the time for the perforated bags. Yes, the classical Louis Vuitton Monogram or logo bags have holes in them all the way. And you can choose the color of the holes. At least, there are three colors to choose from: green, orange, and fuchsia. Nice find. After a couple of months, I guess Jacobs will come up with a new range of colors - say yellow, pink and blue - to launch the next wave of bags.
The Taichung store also offers the other recent bags, including the yellow Monogram Suede prominently featured in the ads with Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen. Apart from that, exclusive jewelry and other Louis Vuitton products are all for sale in Taichung. The exterior of the store also has its own style: it's a huge white chessboard pattern based on the Damier design for some of its bags. A full-page ad in today's newspapers - showing a key with typical LV motifs - signaled to the public that after a special opening day for VIPs, the common woman and man are also welcome to spend his New Taiwan dollars at the shop.
And now the wait is on for what the French fashion giant's flagship store on Taipei's Chungshan North Road will look like.

Going Italian (2)

Spent my afternoon on the second floor at the Taipei Museum of Contemporary Art today. The exhibition "50 Years of Italian Fashion" is well worth it.
You first walk into a huge hall that features pretty much the typical layout of the whole show: picture plates showing one designer alone and with celebrities and family, and models showing off his/her works, and drawings. Each designer has a couple of real, 'live' objects on show, mostly dresses. The first hall features the big names, Armani, Versace, Prada, and famous clothes such as 'that' Versace dress Jennifer Lopez wore, or the Brioni suit made for James Bond Pierce Brosnan. The scariest bit of the show for me was walking across those glass panels in the floor to have a look at the pictures of Prada.
There are so many designers there, many of them I haven't even heard of. Apart from clothes, there is also jewellery on show, and a small number of bags, especially for Gucci - the one with the bamboo handle of course, and one bag symbolizing its present logo style - and Roberta di Camerino's design for Grace Kelly. Speaking about Grace, one constant in the exhibition are the pictures of designers with celebrities. Audrey Hepburn is all around, as are Jacqueline Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, Claudia Cardinale, Lauren Bacall, and so on, showing the narrow connection between Hollywood and some of Italian fashion's most famous maestros, such as Salvatore Ferragamo and Armani.
Past the main hall, the same formula is kept up while spread out over different rooms, with drawings of dresses painted on the wall. My wife's favorite, colorful Missoni, is present of course, as are Etro, Krizia, and Valentino, with catchy and fiery red dresses.
The exhibition lasts until June, and for those who understand Chinese, it will also feature weekly lectures and discussions by local fashion specialists. Read my previous post 'Going Italian' for the details about the museum.

The New Bags

With the winter almost over in Taiwan, there's a load of new bags doing the rounds at the major designer brands these days, and the China Times today picked a few choices.
Topping the list is a Louis Vuitton which doesn't look like a Louis Vuitton at all. OK, I admit it, it has a LV logo stamped on it, but that's it. It looks bulky, it has chains, its design has rows of golden chains on a white background with the LV logo in gold inbetween the chains. Maybe it'll grow on me, but it has too much of a nouveau riche look about it, all glitz, all money, but little taste.
The China Times also presents a large all-black Chanel - "Luxury by Chanel" is the name of the series - with a large double C logo, a fiery red Fendi, and a white Amazona from Loewe.
Actually, passing by the Grand Formosa Regent's underground gallery tonight, I saw far more attractive bags all around me. Prada has gone beige, with that color dominating all its choices. Fendi had denim bags, finally, months after Louis Vuitton and Celine hit on the idea, but still they look good. And at Loewe across the street, I saw an eye-catching bag with both Loewe logos, the classic coat of arms and the big art nouveau writing of the brand's name, combined with splotches of red. Quite impressive, it reminded me of a flamenco dancer in a bright red dress. Very Spanish, but I know if conservative ladies in Taiwan will give it a try, though.
And as to black bags, the Chanel isn't the first one, if you visit the Dior boutique inside Taipei 101, you'll see lots of black bags, a complete changeover from the previous Dior collection, which was all white, and which you can still see at the Regent Galleria.

Going Italian

Vivienne Westwood launched the custom in Taipei last year to have museums stage fashion exhibitions, and this year it's the turn of the Museum of Contemporary Art to get in on the act. Beginning this coming weekend, the museum will host a show titled 'Fifty Years of Italian Fashion.' There's little I know about it so far, all I've seen was the ad for the show in the China Times this morning. It shows a screaming woman in an extremely colorful outfit with high wooden wedge shoes. I guess the white and red on the shoes and her green stockings together make the Italian flag. On both sides of the picture, the names are printed of numerous Italian design houses, from Missoni and Moschino to Brioni and Trussardi over Valentino and Salvatore Ferragamo.
If you want to know what it's all about, like me, you'll have to visit the exhibition. It's on from February 18 thru June 4 - yes, that's a really long time - and the museum's address is 39, Chang'an West Road in Taipei. The museum is closed on Mondays, and its web site is www.mocataipei.org.tw. That's where I'll be next Sunday.
Some distance away from the museum but on the same side of town, the Louis Vuitton store on Chungshan North Road is still not ready, but the central Taiwanese city of Taichung is opening its "LV" temple on February 23. Today's United Daily News says the store is aimed at both wealthy Taiwanese in the central part of the island, but also at eventual tourists from China, that is, if the government ever decides to allow them in in any large numbers. Let's wait and see. You can already guess, my next posting should be a report on the Italian fashion exhibition next weekend.

My Ford is a Frida

Gucci has found a successor for Tom Ford, the Los Angeles Times web site says. Frida Giannini is the first person since Ford's departure to concentrate all design jobs at the Italian house in one person's hands. She already had the women's wear and accessories, and now John Ray has resigned from the men's wear department to leave that business also in Giannini's hands. Such move can be interpreted as a brute power grab, or as a move toward more consistency across the various corners of the Gucci empire.
Giannini presented her first women's collection in Milan last October, and it wasn't received all that well, the LA Times says. Later she won credit by introducing the "Flora" line of shoes and bags with a wild flower motif inspired by a Gucci scarf once designed for Grace Kelly.
So what does Giannini's promotion to her new status mean for Taiwan? Well, nothing at all. As my previous posting shows, Taiwanese women will continue to buy Gucci, no matter who is in charge, Frida Giannini or anybody else. The Italian brand consistently rates only behind that other master of logo culture, Louis Vuitton.

Top of the Pops

The Chinese New Year holiday will be over a couple of hours from now, but it wasn't exactly a quiet period without shopping. Last Monday, I was over in Taipei's Eastern District, in the land of the multitudinous Mitsukoshis, and the place was absolutely crowded.
As the holiday ends, the newspapers also pick up volume again, and today's United Daily News is no exception, with fashion news reappearing on its pages with a report about the Top 10 popular brands from the magazine of that name. A couple of months ago, this blog had a couple of reviews of that publication, but it's been a while since I looked at it.
For its top 10, the magazine polled women, separated in three age categories, ladies in their 20s, 30s and 40s. The top 2 popular brands are the same for all groups, and no surprises, Louis Vuitton is the absolute winner, with Gucci second.
The differences begin at number 3: the 'older' women prefer Chanel to Dior at that rank, though the latter still features in their top 5, as does Coach for all three groups. Further down in the top 10 you also find Burberry, Hermes and agnes b. present in all groups.
The biggest difference is the presence of Anna Sui at number 4 in the list for the youngest women, which the magazine explains by saying its lower prices allow more "brand beginners" to favor its products.
Near the bottom of the rankings there's also place for different names to appear for different age groups: women in their 40s favor Loewe at number 10, those in their 30s put Celine in that place, while the twens have Vivienne Westwood at number 9, maybe because of last year's successful exhibition at Taipei's Fine Arts Museum, or because, as the paper says, of the brand's presence in a popular Japanese movie, Nana.
The Taipei Times style supplement is also back from the holiday in a modest way with a report from The Guardian about John Galliano's latest show for Dior. Red and platinum were his favorite new colors, and the executed French queen Marie Antoinette served as the main historical reference for the show.
Meanwhile, the holiday is over, but Gioia Pan's boutique near the Regent is still not open. And Uma Thurman has made way for Gisele Bundchen on the Louis Vuitton posters, but there's still no sign that its store on the other side of the Regent from Gioia is any closer near completion. I'll keep watching, so keep reading.