There Comes the Neighborhood

At last, things are moving around the Grand Formosa Regent Hotel on Taipei's Chungshan North Road section 2. We told you how Gioia Pan needed months before opening her new boutique there.
This morning I passed by and what did I see? Workmen setting up a large Louis Vuitton suitcase mockup in the plaza in front of the hotel. I suspected either a preparation for the flagship store nearby - after more than a year of building work - or a separate commercial promotion, such as the company's recent luggage show at Taipei 101.
Well, going into the office an hour later, I spotted the United Daily News, and there it was, reporter Yuan Ching mentioning that the store would open on April 28. Last year, a fashion course I was taking was planning to give us a guided tour of the Louis Vuitton store, but then the conversion work just started. All that time, LV fans in the neighborhood were directed to a so-called temporary store just a block north.
No word yet about the scale of the event planned for the opening, and about who will be attending. LVMH Group top man Bernard Arnault didn't fly over for the recent launch of the Taichung store, but would he for the capital, Taipei? There is no word either about what the store will look like, and whether the building itself will be packaged as a piece of Louis Vuitton handicraft, such as the stores in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai and of course Paris were for their grand openings.
On a smaller scale, Paris-based Taiwanese designers Chien Yu-feng and Shawn Pan - formerly known as YufengShawn - will be launching their first major Taipei store under their new brandname Shawnyi in the street next to the Regent tomorrow, Friday April 14. The shop - already mentioned in a previous posting - will emphasize the glamorous, the designers say, and will only sell one piece of each design.