Givenchy pre-fall 2013

Did we mention that we also visited Givenchy's showroom during our previous Parisian trip? But unfortunately the PR girl was quite strict about me photographing the men's collection, making sure that I was hush-hush about next season's pieces. I waited anxiously until she revealed the women's ready to wear collection for pre-fall. Finally I managed to muster the much needed confidence (well, after seeing people around me taking pictures with their smart phones, that is) and started snapping the photos of that beautiful collection. Turned out that photography was actually allowed, but I was firmly warned not to release the images prematurely. Now that summer is coming to an end, I think it is appropriate to publish the images. Plus other major websites have the images up and running, so I hope I did not commit any copyright infringement of some sort...

A Carven Virgin

Recently I've been reading the blogs about the French label Carven, that is recently revived to its former glory. Reading its history timeline is quite fascinating and, being reminded of the Russian History lectures during my former student days, these are the points that I'm highlighting:

images via Carven website

image via vintagefashionguild.org

 In May 1945 Carven (the name derived from the creator Carmen and her aunt Boyriven) opened their first shop selling Haute Couture at Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées. Having reached the international audience in the 1960's, the brand expanded into creating uniforms for airline crews, most notably for Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport, dabbled in a successful ready-to-wear line and they even created signature perfumes.

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)...