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W Means Arrival

6

And here’s another one from Guangzhou…The opening of the first W on the Mainland signifies that Guangzhou has graduated from industrial, commercial hub to ever-hipper, cosmopolitan metropolis.

The executive lounge is a hunting club for a posse of brawny Canadian postmodernists. Neon lips and eyes in the elevators scare little children. The global zeitgeist pours from the luminous walls, aggressive beats, and energetic, vibrant attitude of the staff. The W Guangzhou bar manager is even from Monte Carlo.

A city can host various athletic events, build some hyper towers, and conduct constant beautification campaigns, but few things suggest arrival on the global scene more than the opening of a W. This is more a test for the practical, all-business Guangzhouers than the W, in a way, because the city doesn’t seem quite avant-garde enough. But then, the W is all about taking risks, according to Brian Segrave, the General Manager. A night in Wu Bar or the soon-to-open Fei ultralounge should convince locals that their city has reached the next level.

The W is more than just the very hippest place to stay and party in Guangzhou. It is also a patron of local designers, artists, and musicians, a platform on which local talent can shine. They will be working with fashion designers like Uma Wang and Exception and are also promoting local DJs. The dark glass structure by Rocco Yim, comfortable but hyper-modern interiors by Yabu Pushelberg, and 19 meter high Luminous Water Wall by WETDesign are all talking points for locals.

But the W is not a 24 hour shock to the system. Materials like skins, petrified wood, and metal are truly rarified and specially commissioned artwork matches both the chic of the hotel and the local culture. Guests can bring friends over to the exciting, eclectic, stylish living room – W lobbies are welcoming, fun and vibrant – but then escape to their rooms for some calm. The rooms are surprisingly understated and soothing with the very most convenient in high-tech including the newest toto toilets and music and TV that can be adjusted from the bath.

One thing for sure is that Guangzhou has never had so much glamour and eccentricity packed into one building. From scent to sound, the 43rd W of the world is a full body experience and its acolytes, the forever young cool kids who trot the globe imbibing the latest trends in all its corners, will be thrilled to enter this new property, the first of is brand on the Chinese Mainland.

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Cloud City on the Pearl

“You truly belong here with us among the clouds.” – Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back

Occupying the top third of the diamond-clad IFC tower, the Four Seasons Guangzhou symbolizes the city’s aspirations and newfound glamour.

The 45 second elevator ride to the 70th floor of the IFC Tower sweeps guests into a fantasy world of energetic light, dreamy clouds, and dashing colors. Named The Atrium for the thirty floor high chamber that rises to a glass crescendo above, the lobby lounge is the ideal platform for viewing local luminaries and ladies about to lunch. It also showcases some of the art work for which the hotel is gaining renown. Defining the lobby is a triumphant red piece Australian by sculptor Matthew Harding that symbolizes eternity, while the rooms and other public areas feature ink paintings by Wu Xiao, sculptures by Qu Guangci and other established artists.

From eel-skin walls and Armani leather couches in Japanese restaurant Kumoi to giant fish tails made from mother-of-pearl at seafood restaurant Catch, no expense was spared in creating these magnanimous spaces. Eight and nine are the luckiest numbers for Chinese. Thus, few points are more auspicious for cocktail hour or high tea than the 99th floor of this, the world’s 88th Four Seasons to open. The Executive Lounge and Tian Bar provide breathtaking panoramas of the miniature world below or, frequently, the tips of cranes peering out through the clouds. Especially for those not staying in the hotel – every single one of the 344 rooms, including 42 suites has a stunning view – the Four Seasons is an essential destination for viewing Guangzhou. Why pay 160 RMB to ascend the TV Tower, lying opposite on the south side of the river, when an artfully mixed champagne cocktail awaits at the same elevation in the Four Seasons?

Guangzhou may only have one long, humid, season and the same subtropical appearance throughout the year, but the Four Seasons clearly delineates spring, summer, winter and autumn in its design and artwork. Every six guest floors represents a different season, as reflected in the decor. However, the consistent feature throughout the hotel is a theme of clouds and dragons that appears on carpets, elevator doors and in furniture in the room elevator. Now a showcase work for esteemed US interior design firm Hirsch Bedner & Associates (HBA), the Four Seasons Guangzhou shows the way traditional Chinese elements can fused with the latest in contemporary design and feel playful and fashionable.

Four Seasons 2
A focal point of Guangzhou life: the 30 floor atrium Four Seasons 3
White supporting beams and views of the TV tower feature throughout Four Seasons 4
Outside the Cantonese restaurant, an artist’s impression Go phenomenon Nie Weiping defeating his former teacher Fujisawa Hideyuki at the China-Japan Supermatches Four Seasons 5
Carpets with a cloud pattern match the views from the hotel Four Seasons 6
Catch, the Western-style seafood restaurant by famous HongKong designer Steve Leung, is already a favored place for locals to make wedding proposals. “Yes” is guaranteed in this atmosphere. Four Seasons 7
The bar at Tian Bar is cut from a single 8-meter piece of rare, multi-coloured agate.

Photos: The

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Junior Marketer

We are looking for a junior marketing and social media specialist to work full-time, primarily on a hotel client account. These need to be native level Chinese speakers/readers who are intelligent, self-motivated, have a great attitude and be eager to learn. Needed are:

– Familiarity with Wechat, Weibo, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter and, ideally, experience on using them to market for businesses native Chinese and excellent English.

– A very good exterior – applicants need to be presentable and have a pleasant attitude

This is a full-time position in Beijing, near Sanyuanqiao.

Ideal are recent college graduates with a certain level of sophistication, excellent work habits, and the ability to be pro-active.

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Bubbles on the Huangpu

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The endless commotion and crowding of the city, the constant flood of emails and phone calls, and, above all, the overwhelming pressure to perform and be even more successful – with stresses like these, it’s impressive that the elites of China’s megacities can keep going, day in and day out. Rejuvenating breaks are necessary but frequent vacations are not usually feasible. Fortunately, for those living in Shanghai, there is a new retreat from all of that clutter and responsibility and it’s just a stone’s throw away from the office. Most importantly, they serve Duval Leroy champagne in the executive lounge and have a list of rather classic cocktails. It’s worth going just for this.

With every aspect of the design stressing serenity and calm, the Mandarin Oriental Pudong takes your mind off all of the pressures and worries. Its waterfront setting in the newly developed Harbour City is just minutes from the spires of Lujiazui. The environment is completely different though. This is a precinct for the leisure class just minutes away from where the Shanghai Metropolitan Marine Yacht Club will soon be complete. The 362 guest rooms will suit both those on business trips and locals who need a break. For those who can’t face the inevitable emptiness of returning to a rather less luxuriant home, there are 210 luxury residences, Shanghai’s only fully serviced riverside residences.

Whether in the amenities, the six food and beverages options, or the divine spa, no expense or thoughts for the details have been spared. Every inch of the property has been thoroughly considered, whether by the management or the designers, BUZ Design Consultants for public areas and Chhada Siembieda & Associates for guest rooms. Curated by the renowned Art Front Gallery, the hotel features 4,000 original artworks displayed throughout the public spaces and guest rooms. The design is understated, though colorful, with locally inspired motifs that reference the movement of the Huangpu River waters, Shanghai’s futuristic skyline, carved Chinese window frames and the silhouettes of Shanghai’s plane trees. The colors, scents, and service are all calibrated to bring calm to frazzled guests, liberating them from the hectic world outside.

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On Finding the Right Wife

Hanging from the railing, swaying in the wind with the sun beating down, its pluses and minuses are all on display. After reaching out and having a feel, I can tell it is not the absolute best money can buy. Still, its level of quality and the attention to detail exceed much of the competition. The plaids along the seam on back match perfectly. Even the big and little houndstooth on the slip loop line up perfectly. The silk material has a heavy hand and none of that slipperiness or the excessively shiny finish. It’s not a seven-fold, with all the excessive fabric use that entails, this Hilditch and Key, Made in the UK, would be perfect for a wedding. It is a good product that costs around 100 dollars. Even more expensive, but often of inferior quality, are versions from Versace, Gucci, Ferragamo, and Hermes with patterns that tend to leave no doubt about their lofty brands. For one dollar, something can be had that looks nearly the same from a distance but is made of polyester and lacks the pattern matching. But most people would probably never notice the difference. A man with the right taste might spend one dollar and look stylish, while another buys a good product but still looks ugly. Luxury goods might have designs that most people deem unattractive. And yet the polyester version always announces itself as a bad product upon close examination. And so it is with most products and services. Someone had the odd idea to hang out all my ties for all to see on the railing of the balcony in our room. This prompted my somewhat melancholic series of reflections. A few of my ties were good products that looked ugly, while many were bad products that looked nice. There was always that temptation to buy an attractive, good-looking tie at a low price. The only real conclusion I came to after all that tie-gazing was that in the future I would have to only buy good ties that looked beautiful too. But there is always the risk of paying a lot for an unattractive tie. How could I trust my own taste? Finding a wife with good taste is critical – even if she is ugly.

In any case, please do send her over to check out our tie selection next time you are passing by Senli and Frye.

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The HUB Wechat

The HUB Wechat

Please start following The HUB wechat to hear regular updates…

…Even if trade fairs are not nearly as sexy as fashion weeks. Models getting made-up backstage, a hundred cameras flashing, champagne glasses clinking, media, celebrities, designers all gather for a whirlwind of creativity, energy, and dynamism. From the next set of wares on the shelves of Zara to the annals of the street style blogs, fashion weeks have a direct impact. They are all about change, freshness, trends – the next big thing is being created. Most fashion lovers don’t even think that much about trade fairs but, if they of, the images that might come up is of businessmen haggling, buyers sorting through endless racks of clothing more practical than titilating, and a situation that is generally much more commercial than artistic. Who would want to walk down a long row of booths when they could be seated next to the runway?

Both types of event are about displaying product, but they occupy different roles in the industry and probably shouldn’t be compared. Until I started working with the HUB, as a blogger, I would always have chosen to attend a fashion week before a trade fair. But since working as a consultant on media for this project, my feelings have chanced somewhat. In many ways, I feel that the format of the fair is more suited to my slower vision of what fashion should be. i want it to be more about the products than the emotions, trends, and excitement. At trade fairs, visitors can go directly to the product and have conversations with the people who made it. The issue is not the mood in the air and all the glamour, but rather the fabric, craftsmanship, and commercial viability of specific items. This is a format more suited to thinking merchants with customers who think as well.

These days, we want to buy local, buy durable, and buy a real story. In this context, the slick advertising, global sourcing and selling, and trend addiction of the fashion trade makes it seem – ironically – behind the times. Customers want to move beyond worldwide trends and labels, and conformity from one city to the next. Stylites celebrates bursts of individuality and unique style, as it emerges in China. Though my project has often involved tracking fashion influences from outside on China, the real point is more about something that is distinct to a certain city. The HUB attracted me both because it aligned with my skills and experience, but, perhaps more importantly due to a confluence with my values. With the first edition of the fair, there was a true dedication to bringing brands that had a genuine story and a dedication to quality. At this risk of sounding too zeitgeisty, the HUB showed a commitment to all that is authentic and artisanal. Many of the brands from North America and the UK were really produced there.

For the next show this commitment to real stories and authenticity remains but will also be taken in a new direction: young, independent brands. The Greenhouse will bring young, rising designers from many parts of the world together and give buyers from Asia and beyond a chance to see and feel their offerings up close. About his participation in The HUB, Jamil Juma of Juma Studio comments “we look forward to participating in the Green House. It’s a great way to reach out to Chinese companies as well as International participants in a well curated show.” The Greenhouse will focus on young designers who deserve more attention, build products that are impossible to replicate, and have great stories. Here’s more information from MWB.

Karl Lagerfeld is probably more sexy than a department store owner, so we don’t expect most viewers to get more excited about trade fairs than fashion weeks any time soon. Still, without rejecting the mystique of fashion shows and all their pageantry, I do think that it is nice to have a more real alternative.

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Stylites Internship

Stylites is looking for a marketing intern.  The point is learning about media in China today and meeting and exceeding the requirements of clients that aim to excel in this market.  Are you the right candidate?  Not if you need money, don’t like parties, and are not that into style.  This is for flexible, fun-loving, stylish types with a good degree of ingenuity and drive.  In this role, your writing, researching, and networking skills will all improve dramatically.  You will gain a deep understanding of the fashion world in Beijing and how things are done in the real world.  You will be writing for Stylites and LifeStyle Magazine and working on some of our consulting projects.  The key point here is that you will get some great connections, which you should be able to parlay into more interesting opportunities.  Some  graduates of the Stylites internship program have gone on to Monocle, Stylesight, and to work for Mario Testino.  I wish I had had an opportunity like this when I was in college or just after.

Ideally, candidates are based in Beijing, but remote internship opportunities can be discussed.

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The Fashionable American

Our feature in the December issue of LifeStyle (the magazine I edit in Beijing) was American heritage brands.  We tried to pick out the one’s suited to being Christmas gifts.  Here is the feature.  

It’s hard to understate the contributions made to global pop culture, from Hollywood, to the NBA, to Michael Jackson to a plethora of consumer brands far too familiar to warrant naming.  Despite a seemingly diminishing stature in recent years due to flawed wars, intelligence leaks, healthcare issues and a whole host of other embarrassing quagmires, the hyperpower still looms over everything.

Except for elegance – at least in the popular perception.  Looking at obese American tourists or the pedestrians most cities of the country, outsiders might be forgiven for assuming the place is a sort of style wasteland, but this was far from the case traditionally.  Things are getting better again at the moment.  America has been undergoing a fashion renaissance.  The style set in New York City and Tokyo are well aware of this but the general fashion-buying public is taking some time to catch up.

Behind this transition is a rebirth in American manufacturing.  These are still bags, shoes, and shirts made in places like New England, Nashville and Northern California.  For most, heritage luxury brands must be from Italy, France, or possibly the UK.  Many of the US brands profiled in this issue have a lineage and dedication to quality that could put them on par with the best of Europe.  They just lack the flashiness.

The American aesthetic tends to be about practicality, purpose, and an absence of unnecessary adornments.  Fabrics are rugged but will last a life time.  Shoes can be resoled and will take on a beautiful patina.  True Americanproducts are for living rather than showing off.  The ideal American-style luxury consumer values this true grit, rather than unnecessary display.

So, yeah, we’re hoping that many of these brands will be available in China soon.  Perhaps some of them will even show at the next HUB.  It’s not so much to support the stars and stripes as to get some very high quality, durable items into your wardrobe.

 

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Senli and Frye in Chinese

It’s almost amusing that only now are finally providing a Chinese translation of the introduction to Senli and Frye. My tailorshop, Senli and Frye, has long been focused on foreigners living in Beijing and sometimes those coming through who then order our wares long-distance. We have never really targeted the Chinese market. The notion was always that there are not enough of Chinese with an appreciation for custom suiting. Most of them would prefer to buy a recognized name for suiting like Ermenegildo Zegna or Armani, feeling confident that with names like that, one cannot go wrong. Spending on luxury has, after all, been mostly about status and face and not so much about appearing stylish or even adhering to standards of Western business attire that are, in the end, Western in origin and not necessarily well understood.

Recently, it has become clear that the Chinese consumer has made it in terms of style maturity. Beijingers and Shanghaiers are increasingly cosmopolitan and the constant barrage of mega-brand marketing has brought a degree of fatigue. They don’t want to see more of the same and keep getting treated like reservoirs of cash waiting to be tapped. At the same time, the local customer does care a great deal about his image – much more than the average American and probably as much as most Europeans. Unlike their American counterparts who seem to have absolutely no problem showing up in shorts or sweat pants at Five Star hotels or fancy bars, Chinese men are eager to learn and maintain standards of decorum. They don’t want to look like badly-dressed buffoons. The days of the proverbial Shanxi coal baron bounding into an Armani and spending a million RMB on 30 suits that don’t fit are long gone.

The other trend that favors us is that men around the world have been looking to upgrade their style and the direction these days tends to be be more traditionalist. Quality, customization, and permanent style are the values espoused by the current set of sartorialists, who reject the flashy designer trendwear and slickness of the metrosexual. This is part of the wider move toward all that is artisanal and authentic – and, yes, I realize those words have become quite irksome. China is aggressive in its ability to keep up with the zeitgeist, and the new men are these trends.

So this is our chance to enter as a contender for the rising Chinese gentleman looking to get a better fit for his suits, overcoats, and shirts. We are hoping to soon offer a full range of products including pocket square, ties, shoe polish, and, hopefully, shoes.

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Factory Creative

IMG_1725

Alexander Chu represents the new generation of movers in the Chinese fashion world. I mean the real movers, not editors, bloggers, and independent designers. His family owns a factory in Zhejiang specializing in fur and leather that has done very well commercially by producing OEM for large foreign brands. Now Alexander is using this strong base to create a label of his own. Chinese factories often have the production capacity but lack the creative spirit needed to make the jump to offering their own label. But I’m sure we will be seeing more and more factory labels like Natural Gift. Once they become better at both design and branding, some will be a potent force in the fashion world that presents a different kind of model to the sort of Western brand that just controls the name and image while outsourcing the production to factories in China. I wonder if this sort of vertical integration will work.

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Senli and Frye in the LV Guide

beijing

Senli and Frye has been included in the Louis Vuitton Guide to Beijing.  This is the first edition of the guide and I am anxious to see who else made the cut.  Thanks a lot to the writer, Bénédicte Bro-Cassard, who is also a Consultant and Blogger based here in Beijing.  Here is her blog, fearless-in-Beijing on Le Monde.

senli & frye

I should note that our shop looks a bit more attractive than back when Ms. Bro-Cassard visited.  I invite all to come through to see the changes.  The place has become a sort of micro-club for gentlemen.  We have a small bar, a wide selections of books and magazines, and will soon have coffee available all day, thanks to the Coffee Man.

Senli Fr

And here is the French version.