Sales Season

Another sales season is arriving upon us in Taiwan this month. The starting date is different for each department store or shopping mall, but the promises are all the same.

If you spend so many thousands of New Taiwan dollars on one brand, you'll get about 10 percent free. There are also the 'exclusive' items only available in limited quantities on certain days, say 5 particular bags of one brand only available on October 9. They're hoping to provoke a talking point, to have you line up at 3 in the morning or hit your fellow consumers in the face so the product can make the 24-hour news channel.

Using certain credit cards can also get you discounts, but you have to watch out, because the right bank is not enough, it also has to be the right color - preferably platinum - and the right card issuer - Visa or MasterCard etc. But whatever you want, a jazzy T-shirt, a bling-bling bag, it has to be somewhere out there. Happy shopping!

The pages above are from the Breeze Center's latest publication. That's also a fixed element of these sales, a glossy booklet listing all the discounts and exclusive products. As you can just see, you can blow a cool 400,000 NT dollars on a Ralph Lauren crocodile bag, while Yves Saint Laurent dazzles with his ostrich skin bags.

What's different from previous Autumn sales, are the length of the sales period - down from two to just one month - and the amounts of money you have to spend to get something extra - those are higher than before. So when everything from food to taxi fares is getting more expensive, department store sales are no different from the rest.

As to today Thursday September 20, Marks & Spencer opened its second Taipei outlet, taking up the whole third floor at New York New York, and yes, it features exactly the same products as the other one, including the biscuits and wines. Good to see the men's shirts are at least not made in China, but in Mauritius, Morocco, Turkey and so on.

Also opened today a store of the Swiss brand Bally on the first floor at Taipei 101, while Giorgio Armani Cosmetics is putting on a show between those three Mitsukoshi department stores across the road.

Yawn

So I went to the opening of the first Marks & Spencer in Taipei this morning.
I must admit, the clothes are nice. Colorful shirts for men, blouses for women, dresses for the older women, underwear, children's clothing, all reasonably priced at 2,000 to 3,000 New Taiwan dollars apiece, in a bright and airy environment.
I'm still skeptical whether the shop will stand up against all the other chains already present in Taiwan, but you already know that from previous postings on this blog.
The opening ceremony - not that anyone will judge a shop from its opening activities, but I was there, so why not write about it - was anything but impressive. A bunch of people scaled down from the top of the building with the letters forming the name Marks & Spencer on their backs. If it hadn't been for the Chariots of Fire theme music blasting across the street, nobody would have noticed. So I didn't even bother to take a picture, though that's also because an MRT station exit is blocking the view.
As for my interest in clothing items, while I was waiting for the opening, I cruised around the neighborhood. I saw much more interesting garb at the Armani Exchange and Diesel sales inside the Breeze 2 nearby, while a Giordano Concepts store has also opened on the other side.
The Marks & Spencer also has a food store, I'm glad to say, but it offers far less than what I remember from Europe. No Indian foods, and mostly biscuits and chocolates, overpriced and not English or original enough.
Will I still be visiting Marks & Spencer in Taipei? Probably, once the opening period is over we'll see whether they really master the local fashion scene. In the meantime, their second Taipei store will be opening at New York New York on the 20th, next Thursday.

Will Marks have the Sparks?

The new era is upon us, or so Marks and Spencer would have us believe. As reported before, the venerable British brand is finally opening its first Taipei store this coming Saturday on Chunghsiao East Road section 4. The event will be followed by the launch of a second store at New York New York shopping mall next Thursday.

Once the mainstay of every British main street, the chain expanded to Europe but got into trouble there, not in the least because its rather old-fashioned, conservative image could not measure up to the Zara's and H&M's of this world.

In Taiwan, of course, there are no official H&M or Zara stores - yet - so that kind of competition will not be feared. But I'm still skeptical that Marks and Sparks, as the brand is commonly known, has it to make it on this island. Looking at the advertising, like this photo from the pages of the latest Taiwan edition of GQ, I see the same kind of men's gear you find at G2000, to name but one local chain. And the women's clothes you can find on their web site are not that different from what you can find at dozens of other chain stores.

Look for yourself at http://www.marksandspencer.com.tw/ if the company will become a household name in Taiwan or go the way of that other great British institution, Boots.

Harper's Empty Bazaar

Harper's Bazaar magazine is celebrating its 140th anniversary. Quite a feat, so a special book has been published and even translated into Chinese for readers here in Taiwan.
The magazine also launched an 'exhibition' to attract crowds. Unfortunately, judging from the situation this afternoon, those crowds are unlikely to materialize.
I was the only person in the plaza on the 4th floor of Taipei 101 to bother looking at the exhibits: a very old Mercedes from when cars still looked like bicycles with four wheels, two old pieces of luggage from Louis Vuitton, a piece of crystal from Lalique, and two Issey Miyake dresses. The rest: just old pictures, magazine covers and the like.
Absolutely nothing worth writing home about. The only reason why I write about it here is to save you the effort of wasting your time trekking out to Taipei 101 to see it. Just read the magazine. And the others, Elle, Vogue, Madame Figaro.
There was a tent down outside the Taipei 101 shopping mall for its fashion month, though. My feeling is it would be far more interesting if you could get your hands on an invitation for those events. Where you are sure to see fashion in action.

Taiwan In Style Open

You know what it's like with exhibitions in Taipei. You go there expecting to see lots of interesting things to look over, but you leave before you've seen half of them because it's just too crowded.
You can’t look at anything quietly because there are people standing in front of you waving with free booklets, or 'hot babes' dancing around who have nothing to do with the product on show whatsoever.
Well, nothing of all that this morning at Taipei In Style at the World Trade Center. Maybe it was because I arrived within half an hour after the opening, but I think a more reasonable explanation is just that there's not much on show. If you were hoping to find the who's who of Taiwanese designers at the show, you were completely wrong. There's more Taiwan to be seen during a stroll through the Idee department store.
Charin Yeh had a stand with tasteful black dresses as you can see on the picture top left. Men's brand Carnival was also there, the only problem was: where were its clothes? The company, which was saved from obscurity by car tycoon Kenneth Yen, used its space at the show for anything but its clothes. Gioia Pan was the other big name present.
You can click on the picture at bottom left to see it better, but you're still going to see the same: a dress on the left, a dress in the middle, and a picture on the right. No personnel, no explanations, and certainly no Gioia Pan herself. You can see more of her designs at the nearby Taipei 101.
Taipei In Style also had a bunch of lesser known makers of hats, underwear, yoga gear and sports outfits, but my interest in those wasn't too high. There was an aboriginal corner, well worth checking out for its exoticism factor.
But the most enjoyable section of the show for me was the students' corner, with original and sometimes unwearable things, but still, at least they were worth looking at. You can see one of their designs in the picture on the right. The students came from three universities in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
So all in all a rather disappointing morning, but maybe I shouldn't have expected so much from a show where the entrance is free and where the generous organizers give you a free bottle of tea.
You can still check it out for yourself until Sunday evening if you're in the neighborhood. I wouldn't do so unless I had to be in the Taipei 101 area anyway.
The next event on my fashion calendar: the opening of the first Marks & Spencer in Taipei on September 15 in the former Tongling Department Store on Chunghsiao East Road section 4, that's the building housing the California Fitness and the Luxy.