Jil Sander is coming to KL!

The long weekend is a blessing that I can rest at home watching tear-inducing, albeit cliched Islamic themed dramas on Astro (they are my mother's firm favorite, no one was allowed to change channels once Astro has those showing. Good job Astro on playing on the banal emotional card. You just know, despite the triteness of it all, how to feed on Malay/Asian culture. Brilliant marketing ploy, I must say).

Being the mall rat that I am, I took the opportunity of an extra day off to have a look at the shops in Pavilion, a rarity nowadays, now that I work and live outside Kuala Lumpur. Lo and behold, what I found when I was browsing the two levels of Pavilion's luxury area:

Apparently TENC (The Emperor's New Clothes) is being replaced by Club 21's another project! Looks like it's time for TENC to wrap up. I guess politicians and menswear don't go hand in hand?

Runway at Vincom Centre

You probably have guessed from my previous post that I was in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. True, I had a short family trip few days ago (after the Cameron Highland trip you must have noticed how I still join family trips where siblings bicker against parents over petty things which is a norm during this kind of travelling).

Apart from the touristy spots I managed to visit Vincom Center, a luxury mall in the heart of Saigon. It is quite apparent that the Vietnamese purchasing power is burgeoning ever more so after the country's policy starts to become more open to foreign investments. And this consequently leads to an economic boom which is evident in the mushrooming of luxury labels nesting amongst the high street shops in Vincom Centre.

Passing by the Runway boutique intrigued me, so much so that I decided to enter the premise. Apparently it is a multilabel store that stocks luxury labels that I deem are highly in demand - I saw Jil Sander bags, a Stella McCartney top-to-toe runway look and Lanvin bags perched on the racks of its window display. I entered the premise and politely introduced myself and explained about Dunia Fashyon, and also my intent to take photography inside the boutique. Unfortunately my request was denied by the fact that I had to contact the marketing team beforehand.


Therefore, for Dunia Fashyon, I decided to sneakily take pictures of the boutique. Forgive me if your eyes are pained by the skewed images. They WERE indeed taken in paparazzi style...

A brief research reveals that Runway Saigon is a part of the Runway company (with another smaller Runway branch in Hanoi and RRR which focuses on diffusion lines that Runway would carry). The concept store is led by the young entrepreneur Tranh Thi Hoai Anh, with interior design by Milanese CLS architects. Besides the clothing items they have in-store I'm quite fond of the boutique's ice cove
interior.

This concept store also stocks ceramics from Fornasetti and Gaetano Pesce sofas.

It is quite unfortunate when I learned that their menswear collection is somehow rather limited with classic shirts by the likes of Brioni, and also few Sergio Rossi and Margiela shoes, and rows and rows of mundane T-shirts from various high-end labels. I also found army green and beige Celine bi-cabas totes lying around the mens' section. However there's this Italian brand called Kiton that I'm eager to find out about more in the future. Price-wise I could generally conclude that it is still more expensive compared to the usual European stores (e.g a pair of Margiela leather Oxfords still cost about 300 British pounds even after a half-price discount)...