When they were constructing the store in Paris, as early as 2004, LVMH design team know how to capture attention by being subtle:

In Shanghai they did the same but with just one valise.  China is an important market for most manufacturers of luxury goods because of the emerging wealth.

• Asian's obsession with material wealth  

PRESS CLIPPINGS:

The Real Vuitton
Opens China Store,
Challenging Copycats

SHANGHAI -- Louis Vuitton opened a Shanghai boutique, defying Chinese copycats who have flooded world markets with cheap knockoffs of its handbags.

Though counterfeiters operate brazenly in China, luxury-goods makers like Louis Vuitton, Giorgio Armani, and other big-name brands say that they believe China is following up on promises to crack down on fake products and that the market is too lucrative to ignore.

Protection of trademarks and other intellectual property "has seen tremendous improvement over the last two years," said Christopher Zanardi-Landi, Louis Vuitton's general manager for China. He noted a recent announcement in Beijing that the government would enforce a ban on counterfeit products in local markets notorious for selling them.

There has been little evidence of that in Shanghai. On Thursday, just a few kilometers south of Nanjing Road, where the new store is located, peddlers of fake brand bags were operating openly in the city's best-known open air bazaar, Xiangyang Market, with "Gucci" and "Dior" bags in plentiful supply.

Though the peddler's stalls didn't openly display Louis Vuitton bags, they did show visitors catalogs of products to be found at stores hidden in side streets.

Sellers of counterfeit bags aggressively chased after market visitors, waving leaflets describing the products available at a fraction of the prices charged for the real thing.

The Shanghai opening was timed to coincide with China's first Formula One grand prix, to be held Sunday. The event sparked a rush of promotional events.

Louis Vuitton, the star brand of the world's largest luxury-goods group, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA of France, opened its first store in China in 1992 in Beijing's Palace Hotel and has operated at Plaza 66 since 2001. It upgraded the boutique, expanding it to two floors this year as part of a nationwide expansion. In the past month, Louis Vuitton also has opened stores in Xi'an, in north-central China, and Xiamen, on the southeast coast, bringing the number of its outlets on the mainland to 11. - ASSOCIATED PRESS      24 Sept 2004

Vuitton opens flagship store

Louis Vuitton opened a store in China on Thursday that is its largest in Asia outside Japan, underlining western companies' confidence that an increasingly wealthy middle class will splash out on luxury goods.

The flagship brand of the French luxury powerhouse is convinced of China's growth potential despite a proliferation of knock-off goods and annual incomes that average just US$1,000 (HK$7,800).

The 1,350 square metre boutique in Shanghai, China's richest city, sits on the chic western edge of Nanjing Road. It carries Louis Vuitton's entire range: from its signature trunks and bags to shoes and jewellery.

``It's not a question of potential, it's already here. The luxury goods business is growing very strongly ... at a speed where it's a challenge for us to keep up,'' said Christopher Zanardi-Landi, general manager of Louis Vuitton in China.

The country is its No3 market after Japan and the United States.

The store could help convince Chinese, who usually head to the larger and better-stocked boutiques of cosmopolitan Hong Kong, to stay at home and spend a rising pool of yuan.

"Pricing is less of an issue here than choice,'' Zanardi-Landi said, adding prices in China were only 10 per cent higher than in Hong Kong despite the mainland's prohibitive import duties. Louis Vuitton, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, opened its first store in China in 1992 and has opened 12 others since.

LVMH, maker of Fendi furs, Christian Dior perfumes and Dom Perignon champagnes, has been keen to expand in China and had said Louis Vuitton showed particular promise in the country.

"We plan to open two more stores in China this year - one in Hangzhou in November and another in Qingdao in December,'' said Francois Delage, Louis Vuitton's Asia-Pacific executive vice-president. -   REUTERS       24 Sept 2004

Bagging Some Big New markets

The Vuitton Money Machine
Inside the world's biggest, most profitable luxury brand 

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. Behind a locked door in the basement of Louis Vuitton's (LVMHY ) elegant Paris headquarters, a mechanical arm hoists a brown-and-tan handbag a half-meter off the floor -- then drops it. The bag, loaded with a 3 1/2 kilogram weight, will be lifted and dropped, over and over again, for four days.

This is Vuitton's test laboratory, a high-tech torture chamber for its fabled luxury goods. Another piece of lab equipment bombards handbags with ultraviolet rays to test resistance to fading. Still another tests zippers by tugging them open and shutting them 5,000 times. There's even a mechanized mannequin hand, with a Vuitton charm bracelet around its wrist, being shaken vigorously to make sure none of the charms falls off.

Think Louis Vuitton, and what comes to mind? Certainly not some robot that batters bags all day. Most likely, it's those glossy ads -- you know, the ones with supermodels draping their lithe frames over Vuitton luggage against a striking gold-and-turquoise desert landscape. Or the crowd of Hollywood celebs, fashionistas, and even Rudy Giuliani, partying at a champagne-soaked 150th birthday party for Vuitton in a tent next to Lincoln Center in New York last month. Or the sleek new Vuitton retail temples, from Fifth Avenue to Tokyo's fashionable Omotesando district, where shoppers plunk down $1,000 and up for a handbag in the new Murakami line.

Vuitton trades brilliantly in the stuff of desire and ego. Yet creating a buzz is the stock in trade of every fashion and luxury house. Flip through Vogue, Vanity Fair, or Elle, and you'll find pages and pages of half-naked models, legs splayed, dangling handbags from Vuitton and rivals Gucci, Prada, and Hermès. In the glam department, Vuitton is great but not alone.

You have to peek behind the glittery facade to see what makes Vuitton unique -- what makes it, in fact, the most profitable luxury brand on the planet. There's the relentless focus on quality. (That robot makes sure Vuitton rarely has to make good on its lifetime repair guarantee.) There's the rigidly controlled distribution network. (No Vuitton bag is ever marked down, ever.) Above all, there's the efficiency of a finely tuned machine, fueled by ever-increasing productivity in design and manufacturing -- and, as Vuitton grows ever-bigger, the ability to step up advertising and global expansion without denting the bottom line. "Their operating metrics are second to none," says Lew Frankfort, chief executive of U.S. handbag maker Coach, who wants to surpass Vuitton's success someday.

Good luck, Lew. The Vuitton machine is running mighty smoothly right now. With $3.8 billion in annual sales, it's about twice the size of runners-up Prada and Gucci Group's Gucci division. Vuitton has maintained double-digit sales growth and the industry's fattest operating margins as rivals have staggered through a global downturn the past two years. That power was underscored anew on Mar. 3, when parent LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMHY ) reported a 30% earnings increase for 2003, fueled by a record-high 45% operating margin at Vuitton. The average 25% margin in the luxury accessories business is 25%. "The sky's the limit," says Yves Carcelle, the charismatic former textile executive who has run Vuitton since 1990 and is widely credited with masterminding its turbocharged growth.

LEVITATING ACT. LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault says the brand will keep roaring ahead, even though it has already quintupled sales and increased margins sixfold since he bought the company in 1989: "Of all the luxury brands, Vuitton has the greatest potential for growth." Although LVMH doesn't disclose sales for Vuitton alone, analysts reckon they grew at least 16% worldwide last year and are likely to repeat that feat in 2004. Thanks to Vuitton's levitating act, LVMH's Paris-traded shares have almost doubled in the past 12 months, to more than $75 (60 euros).

Compare that with Gucci, which not only posted disappointing sales and reduced ad spending last year but also was rocked by the announced departure of designer Tom Ford. And whereas Ford had reshaped Gucci in his own rock-star-inspired image, the power of Vuitton extends beyond the persona of well-regarded chief designer Marc Jacobs.

Does Vuitton -- which started as a maker of steamer trunks during the reign of Napoleon III -- have its best days ahead of it? It still needs to wean itself from Japanese customers, who account for an estimated 55% of sales. Vuitton must build sales in the U.S. while tapping into rising affluence in China and India. It also needs to fight increasingly sophisticated global counterfeiting rings. Most of all, because Vuitton markets itself as an arbiter of style, it needs to keep convincing customers that they're members of an exclusive club.

Carcelle dismisses suggestions that Vuitton has limited growth potential. Yet it's a crucial question for LVMH, which draws an estimated 80% of its profits from Vuitton, thus propping up less-successful units, from the DFS duty-free retail chain to couturiers Christian Lacroix and Givenchy. "If LVMH didn't have Louis Vuitton, it would be a disaster," says Armando Branchini of InterCorporate, a Milan luxury consulting group. The touchiness of this issue was underscored recently when LVMH won a ruling in France that a Morgan Stanley analyst, who had cited Vuitton's "maturity," had downgraded LVMH's shares unfairly. Morgan Stanley is appealing the decision, which awarded LVMH at least $39 million in damages.

These are serious concerns. But Vuitton has some serious strengths. One is the loyalty of its clients, shoppers who think one Vuitton bag in the closet just looks too lonely. "I save up for a while, and then I spend a lot on one item," says Elizabeth Hanny, an Indonesian civil servant leaving Vuitton's boutique on Paris' Avenue Montaigne with a cylinder-shaped Papillon monogrammed toile bag that she just bought for $665. Hanny, 35, has shopped at Vuitton since she was 20. Vuitton strategy is to move such shoppers up from the classic tan-and-brown monogrammed bags to newer lines such as Murakami, which starts at around $1,000, and Suhali, a line of goatskin bags that average more than $2,000.

Women aren't the only Vuitton addicts. Meet Jean-François Bardonnet, 51, an independently wealthy Frenchman who's a sucker for Vuitton briefcases, wallets, even eyeglass cases. "You buy into the dream of Louis Vuitton," he says. "We're part of a sect, and the more they put their prices up, the more we come back. They pull the wool over our eyes, but we love it."

Vuitton was already the world's biggest luxury brand when Arnault acquired it in 1989. But the previous owner, France's Racamier family, had focused mainly on building a Japanese clientele that accounted for 75% of sales. Then in the late 1990s, luxury accessories became red-hot, with long waiting lists for bags such as the Kate Spade tote and the Fendi "baguette." Vuitton's classic brown bags, still renowned for their quality, looked dumpy by comparison.

Enter Jacobs, a streetwise New York designer associated with the grunge look. He seemed a risky choice for Vuitton when Arnault hired him in 1998. But Jacobs' fresh, unfussy aesthetic was a perfect fit, and the new ready-to-wear and shoe lines that he has introduced -- though they account for less than 15% of Vuitton sales -- draw younger customers in the door. Last spring, Jacobs teamed up with Japanese artist Takashi Murakami on a multicolored line of bags, incorporating images like cherry blossoms and eyes into the traditional LV monogram and adding shiny metal trim. Vuitton sold more than $300 million of them last year. "Vuitton is a status symbol, always has been," Jacobs says. "But now it's sexier, bolder." While the Jacobs touch has attracted younger buyers, Vuitton continues to attract older clients with its quality and lifetime free repairs.

Vuitton owes much to Jacobs. But it owes just as much to executives such as Emmanuel Mathieu, a former factory manager at food and beverage giant Danone, who has headed Vuitton's industrial operations since 2000. On Mathieu's watch, Vuitton has boosted manufacturing productivity 5% a year, with improvements ranging from more efficient leather-cutting equipment to a new teamwork model in factories loosely modeled on the quality circles pioneered by Japan's auto makers. Five years ago, Mathieu says, it took 12 months from the time Vuitton decided to launch a new product until the item hit stores. Now it takes about six months. "We're always looking for ways to improve," Mathieu says.

Managers such as Mathieu have helped transform Vuitton from an overgrown cottage industry into a 21st-century business. Vuitton's manufacturing is still labor-intensive, with a team of 24 workers producing about 120 handbags a day. But, says Andrew Gowen, a London-based analyst who until recently covered LVMH for Lehman Brothers Inc. , "they've achieved pretty close to the perfect balance between mechanization and handmade." Gowen, who has visited the factories of Vuitton and competitor Hermès, says they are "worlds apart. At Hermès, it looks like you stepped into the 14th century, just rows and rows of people stitching." Hermès bags cost more, but its operating margins are only about 25%.

To see how the Vuitton machine works, consider the Boulogne Multicolor, a new shoulder bag that went on sale this month in Vuitton stores worldwide for about $1,500. With the success of the Murakami line last year, Vuitton marketing executives quickly began looking for a way to capitalize on it. Canvassing store managers, they learned that customers were asking for a Murakami shoulder bag. In a workshop attached to the marketing department, technicians took a classic bag, the Boulogne, reworked it in multicolored toile, added metal studs and other touches, and dubbed it the Boulogne Multicolor. "We wanted to have some elements that were striking, while retaining the history," marketing chief Pascale Le Poivre says. The prototype went directly from the marketing department to top execs, who approved the bag without any involvement by Jacobs' high-profile design team. Moving to production was easy: Factories could use existing templates.

TEAMWORK PAYS OFF. By June, the prototype was on its way to Vuitton's factory in Ducey, an airy, glass-sheathed building near the Normandy coast. On the factory floor, workers feed canvas and leather into precision equipment that cuts out the pieces of each bag, cookie-cutter style. Other workers sit at sewing machines, each performing a different task such as stitching in lining.

As at all Vuitton factories, employees at Ducey work in teams of 20 to 30. Each team works on one product at a time, and team members are not only encouraged to suggest improvements in manufacturing but are also briefed on details about the product, such as its retail price and how well it is selling, says Stéphane Fallon, a former manager for Michelin who runs the Ducey factory. "Our goal is to make everyone as multiskilled and autonomous as possible," says team leader Thierry Nogues.

The teamwork pays off. When the Boulogne Multicolor prototype arrived at Ducey last summer, workers who were asked to make a test production run quickly discovered that the decorative metal studs were causing the zipper to bunch up, adding time and effort to the assembly process. The team alerted factory managers, and within a day or two, technicians had moved the studs a few millimeters away from the zipper. Problem solved.

Such efficiency helps compensate Vuitton for its decision to keep most manufacturing in France, one of the world's most expensive labor markets. Of the 13 factories that make Vuitton bags, 11 are in France -- and the other two are across the border in Spain. Why not manufacture someplace cheaper? "The question gets raised all the time, but we feel more confident of quality control in France," says Mathieu.

Productivity alone won't sustain growth. So while most luxury groups cut their ad budgets last year, Vuitton boosted spending an estimated 20%, including a global campaign featuring Jennifer Lopez. This year's campaign, shot in the Dubai desert, features supermodels including Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. "We used to be modest, too modest," Carcelle says of Vuitton's advertising strategy. "Now we've taken it to a new level." Even so, Vuitton is so big that analysts reckon it spends only about 5% of revenues on advertising, half the industry average.

Other companies are trying hard to emulate Vuitton's success. Coach has repositioned its once-utilitarian bag as a snazzy accessory, widening margins to 29%. Venerable Hermès is expanding its retail network and recently hired designer Jean Paul Gaultier to freshen its image. Vuitton will try to outpace these rivals as it carefully opens boutiques around the world. Arnault is especially pleased that the U.S. stores, which once posted 75% of their sales to Japanese tourists, now are thronged with local shoppers who account for 85% of sales. That's helping Vuitton reduce its risky dependence on Japanese customers. Vuitton's sales in Japan grew 12% last year -- respectable, but lower than companywide sales growth. "Almost every grown-up Japanese woman already owns at least one Louis Vuitton item," says Akira Miura, chief editor of WWD Japan, a fashion paper.

As Vuitton expands, other hazards appear. Counterfeiting has risen sharply in the past five years, largely because of China. Interestingly, Chinese spurn the fake bags, which are mainly exported to Europe and the U.S. or sold to tourists. Pressed by Vuitton, Chinese authorities closed one factory last July in Guangzhou. "It's a menace we take very seriously," says Bertrand Stalla Bourdillon, director of intellectual property.

Another menace would be the departure of key personnel. Early this year, there was speculation that Jacobs might leave unless LVMH gave more backing to his clothing line. But his contract runs until 2008, and Arnault recently has been singling out Jacobs' label as a rising star in LVMH's portfolio.

For Vuitton, the biggest challenge may be to keep this powerful machine under control. The company opened 18 stores last year, about twice the rate of store openings a decade ago. "The temptation with a lot of brands is to immediately find new outlets, new sources of distribution, and price points," says Marc Gobé, a New York-based principal in the brand consulting group Desgrippes Gobé. Not Vuitton. "They are extremely disciplined," Gobé says. Arnault promises that Vuitton will never lose its discipline or its focus on quality. "That's what differentiates Louis Vuitton," he says.

The message seems to be getting across. Just ask Ariella Cohen, a 24-year-old Manhattan legal assistant who already owns a Vuitton messenger bag and several Vuitton accessories, and now covets high-heeled Vuitton sandals -- even though she'll have to put her name on a waiting list. "Louis Vuitton never goes out of style," she says as she leaves Vuitton's Fifth Avenue store. With luck, the Louis Vuitton machine will never run out of steam.  - by  Carol Matlack   With Diane Brady in New York, Robert Berner in Chicago, Rachel Tiplady in Paris, and Hiroko Tashiro in Tokyo   Business Week International Edition Cover Story   22 March 2004

Headed to China

Sales of luxury gifts, handbags, accessories and leather luggage in the Paris-based company's traditional markets of North America and Europe have slumped as holidaymakers stayed home in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

``China is an up-and-coming market for us. We will continue to aggressively expand in key cities, but negotiating with landlords and getting all the licences in order may mean that we may not be able to complete everything in 2003,'' Louis Vuitton communications director for Asia-Pacific Vita Wong-kwok said.

``In selecting Harbin, we have a store project committee that examines the potential for growth, income per capita and the presence of other brands.

``We don't just look at the city itself as there is also the surrounding catchment area to consider.''

Sixteen per cent of the company's global sales came from Asia outside Japan in 2001. The company saved US$150 million (HK$1.17 billion) in the first half of 2002 by closing all seven of its Sephora cosmetics stores in Japan, pulling the chain out of Germany and cutting more than 1,000 jobs at its DFS duty-free stores.

LVMH reported a rise in third-quarter sales of 1.9 per cent.

Morgan Stanley's head of European mergers and acquisitions, Michael Zaoui, forecast sales by the world's 10 biggest luxury goods makers would rise as little as 4 per cent this year.

Retail sales of luxury brands have been hit hard as a result of lower tourist traffic and, to some extent, piracy and parallel imports.

``Piracy is a big issue and we need to deal with it with more communication, government lobbying and customer education,'' Wong-kwok said. ``We need to protect our intellectual property rights and communicate that to our consumers.

``Parallel imports are also a big problem as people are not buying our goods from the official source.

``The situation is more serious in Japan as our goods are priced the highest there and are always in great demand, so this is bound to happen.''

Differences in the price of desirable luxury goods sold in different countries makes arbitrage and thus, parallel imports, a booming trade despite consumer spending hitting fresh lows.

At Louis Vuitton's Landmark store in Hong Kong, for instance, sales are brisk as crowds are seen emerging with large stockpiles of handbags and fashion accessories believed to be for resale elsewhere in the region.

``We try to address the issue in a professional way, legal or otherwise, as it infringes on our rights. Consumers benefit from the knowledge that these are distributors who are not an official source,'' Wong-kwok said.

The company will strengthen its publicity and advertising to boost brand awareness in the region.

Wong-kwok said that, although there was a growing shift towards the Taiwan and mainland consumer, the company still relied heavily on Japanese tourist money to pad out its bottom line, even though the number of Japanese holidaymakers travelling overseas is expected to dip 5.6 per cent this year to 509,000.

In Vietnam, for instance, where the company is considering opening its second store, about 250,000 Japanese visited the country last year, more than six times the number in 1998.

Louis Vuitton recently opened its largest store in the world in Tokyo's shopping district of Omotesando.   -     Hong Kong Standard       29 Dec 2002

Lots of Louie luxury in Have-Not British Columbia

The dominant colour is black. But this is no No Logo crowd. More like More Logo.

More than 400 people are sipping tiny bottles of Moet & Chandon champagne and reaching for precious little nibblies in homage to one of the great logos of conspicuous consumption: LV, as in Louis Vuitton.

It's Thursday night and Louis Vuitton is holding a party to celebrate the expansion of its Vancouver branch at the Hotel Vancouver.

Shoes are arranged in lit display boxes like a Gathie Falk painting. Tiny handbags sit like objets d'art in a museum. And the LV monogram is everywhere.

The event has a charity -- the Dr. Peter Centre, the supported living centre for people with HIV/AIDS. But the real purpose is to let friends, clients and potential customers know about Louis Vuitton's new expansion.

The swank affair has many gorgeous women and gorgeous men -- as these upscale fashion confections always do. And among the more genetically-blessed men is Claus-Dietrich Lahrs, the 37-year-old Teutonic president of Louis Vuitton North America. His mission is to make Vancouver's most affluent consumers loosen their Louis Vuitton purse strings and buy more of the Louis Vuitton brand.

British Columbia may be on the verge of becoming a have-not province. And the luxury goods business may have been rocked by a succession of shocks: the global economic slump, the weakening Japanese market and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

But Lahrs is convinced there is enough disposable income in Vancouver to warrant Louis Vuitton's move to double its floor space here. The store in the Hotel Vancouver is also adding expensive watches and jewelry to its existing offering of other expensive social signifiers of wealth: accessories, luggage and shoes.

It's a reminder that there are a lot of rich people in Vancouver. That there's a reservoir of private wealth often forgotten amid the headlines of economic gloom.

"Our customers aren't immune to the economy's problems," said Lahrs, "but the wealth created in North America during the 1990s was so tremendous that stock market fluctuations don't really affect the well-being of our customers."

Lahrs can't help but smile as he looks out at the party. "We've always had strong business here in Vancouver," said Lahrs. "Even after Sept. 11, we never saw a strong decline."

A visit to the Louis Vuitton outlet the next day underlined how this is a store pas comme les autres. Sales staff and the store manager refused to divulge the price of items, where the pricetag was not in sight. All inquiries, the reporter was told, had to be forwarded to Louis Vuitton's public relations consultant in Toronto.

Luxury goods -- the sector dominated by brands such as Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Fendi and Cartier -- have always been more immune to recession than say auto parts, pulp or eggs. People who spend thousands on handbags with the LV logo tend to have secure jobs or are so wealthy they don't have to worry about their next paycheque.

But the global luxury goods sector was hurt by the recession in the Japanese economy and the decline in travel by Japanese tourists following the Sept. 11 attacks. The Japanese, who used to buy a third of the world's luxury goods, cut their foreign travel in half after the collapse of the World Trade Center's twin towers.

Japanese customers continue to be important to Louis Vuitton in Vancouver and will be even more important once air travel is seen as safe again, said Lahrs. But Japanese tourists are less essential than they once were, said Lahrs, because Louis Vuitton has focused in recent years on the domestic North American market.

About the people who shop at the Hotel Vancouver store, Lahrs said: "It's old Vancouver money, as well as a very strong Asian community, a very strong Chinese community. These are people who have lived in Vancouver for several years."

The Louis Vuitton store at the Hotel Vancouver is located in the heart of the luxury goods district. "Whenever we decide to locate new stores or relocate or expand existing stores we want to be in the prime real estate areas which give you access not just to local customers but also visibility for travellers," said Lahrs.

"Tourists only have one or two days and they tend to go where the big brands and the most beautiful buildings are located."

Across the street from Louis Vuitton is Luxe International, which markets a number of luxury goods brands. Store owner Susan Pratt said that business dropped in the months immediately after Sept. 11 but rebounded last Christmas and has continued to be strong through 2002.

"Our sales are up. We are not falling behind last year. The number of Japanese travellers are increasing and each month gets a little better."

Besides relying on Asian travellers, Luxe also depends on a strong local demand, said Pratt.

"We have a very stable market for luxury goods in Vancouver. The products are in high demand and in limited distribution."

Pratt's stores sell many upscale brands, including Prada, Miu Miu and Celine. She said that Vancouver buyers are very brand conscious.

The Louis Vuitton brand goes back to the man himself, a carpenter and trunk maker who lived in 19th-century France. He made his name as a master packer for elegant society women. He began his own store and over time his luggage, with the Vuitton monogram, became synonymous with upscale elegance.

Louis Vuitton is now part of the world's largest luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, or Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, the maker of Louis Vuitton handbags and accessories, Moet & Chandon champagne, Hennessy cognac, Givenchy fashions and Christian Dior perfumes.  - Vancouver Sun 7 Dec 2002 

Queuing up at a 'brand' new store in Tokyo

Brand-conscious Japanese settle down to a long, patient wait for the opening of the world's largest Louis Vuitton store in Tokyo on Sunday morning. To house the luxury French designer label, a 10-storey building made of glass and metal has been constructed on Omotesando, the Champs Elysees of Tokyo.

Twenty-five-year-old student Shinobu Murakami was waiting, but was almost near the entrance, after 8 1/2 hours of waiting. ''Japanese cannot help themselves when it comes to designer labels,'' he said.

Asia accounts for about half the sales of Louis Vuitton, with around 30 per cent coming from Japan alone. Last year, it made sales worth 117.6 billion yen (S$1.7 billion) there.

Handbags bearing the designer label are made in France and sold in Japan at a 25 per cent premium on the price in Paris. Demand for luxury items continues to defy a slump in Japanese consumption, analysts said.  -  Singapore Straits Times     3 September 2002

Vuitton shop mirrors Omotesando style in Tokyo
The velvet ropes were out as recently as last Saturday to corral the style-conscious, as well as the style-indifferent, into an obedient line in front of the Louis Vuitton shop in Omotesando, Tokyo.

The crowds outside the shop, the designer label's largest to date, have thinned considerably since its grand opening about a month ago--only 20 to 30 people were queuing last week, a tiny fraction of the hundreds who waited hours on opening day. All the same, these people share the same purpose: to escape reality and immerse themselves in the world of Vuitton, the fantasy world of fashion.

At first glance, the 10-story building (five stories of which are dedicated to public shop space) seems to entice shoppers to surrender to the whims of luxury when they walk through its floor-to-ceiling glass entrance. As a reminder of what first put the Vuitton name on the fashion map, both the shop's interior and exterior have been designed to resemble a stack of the label's famous monogrammed luggage trunks.

But as much as the shop celebrates a fantasy that can be bought and sold in the shape of purses, wallets and Marc Jacobs' designs, it also pays homage to the street on which it stands.

"The stacked trunk idea is probably the easiest explanation of the shop's concept, but there's more," says Jun Aoki, the architect who designed the Omotesando shop. "It has to do with the structure's position on Omotesando and the relationship it has with the street.

"Omotesando is like a mosaic of shops and buildings, so in a way, the 'stacked' theme can also be applied to the district," the 46-year-old architect adds. "You can look at the building as a convergence of independent ideas and concepts, or as one unified structure from the start."

Despite simplistic comparisons to Paris' Champs Elysees that have been tossed around for years, the Omotesando district has a spirit that is truly its own. In a way, the canopy of zelkovas that line the street between Meiji dori and Aoyama dori avenues have sheltered the district from the asphalt fates that have befallen areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku. An area that has developed organically from a close-knit residential district to an equally intimate collection of, until recently, small galleries and shops, Omotesando is one of Tokyo's last remaining "uncommercial" commercial areas.

"It's a district that expanded primarily because it's a good place to live, and now it fulfills two purposes, as a place to live and a place to work, so it's very different from other areas," says Aoki, who worked under world-renowned architect Arata Isozaki for most of the 1980s and has made a name for himself mainly designing residential homes that explore the idea of links between spaces. Having also designed Vuitton shops in Ginza and Nagoya, Aoki explained that he took a softer approach to the Omotesando shop to reflect the area's history as a residential district.

Although the facades of all three shops play on the theme of right angles, the exterior of the Omotesando shop features color and is draped with metallic fabric, which gives it a warmth that sets it apart from the monochrome shops in the Ginza and Nagoya's Sakae district, which, encased in clear glass, reflect a cool, exclusively urban feel.

"It's impossible to capture the essence of the street with glass," Aoki explains. "The metallic fabric is more understated and it creates an organic feel that conveys the texture of fallen zelkova leaves."

Aoki points out that one of the biggest challenges of designing the structure was finding a way to emphasize the fact that, unlike Ginza and Sakae, which are known primarily as commercial areas, people actually live in Omotesando.

"Any building should show an understanding of the elements of its surroundings and present them in a new form. That's how cities should grow," he says. "I wanted to illustrate that understanding with the Vuitton building."

Peering out from behind the thick foliage of the trees, the building gives the impression of having stepped back from the street. Unlike the closed feel of many of the shops on the street which attempt to entice shoppers only with shop front displays, the glass entrance of the Vuitton shop exposes the floor space from the street, offering visibility right through the building.

The interior maximizes the idea of open space by exposing its structural elements. The concept of the "room" is nonexistent here, and therefore, there are no conventional walls, which enables each space to flow into the next with a natural continuity. Partitioning devices don't really partition at all. Instead, the same metallic fabric used on the facade creates "invisible" walls that contribute to the concept of fluidity. Each floor offers a view from the floor above and below it, and the wide stairwell, the shop's unlikely centerpiece, is visible from every corner of the shop.

What links these spaces is the people who pass through them, and the shop has been designed to emphasize interaction, or at least an awareness of the objects and people that surround you.

"I wanted to preserve this awareness of surroundings, because it's so distinctly urban, but I wanted to do it with a certain subtlety," the architect explains. "That's what the screens are for. They delineate the rooms, but you can see out of and into every space in the building. Even if you can't make out the shapes clearly, you can see a silhouette of an object or some sort of indication that someone is on the other side, which I think people find comforting."

Omotesando's legacy threatened

Across the street from the Vuitton shop are the Aoyama Dojunkai apartments, which were built after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and today mainly house shops and galleries. One of the nation's first public housing complexes, the Western-style apartments became a blueprint of modern Japanese communal living and have since become a city landmark not only as one of the projects that pioneered the concept of the contemporary urban community, but also for the way the four-story buildings are essentially an extension of the street itself.

Shunning the concept of the high-rise, its low, extended shape is perfectly proportioned to the scale of the street, and its enormous picture windows and open-air stairwells are designed to absorb the greenery of the street--to integrate exterior with interior.

Although Aoki considers comparisons between the buildings as a compliment, it's no coincidence that the facade of the Omotesando shop mirrors the concept of the Aoyama Dojunkai apartments. Both draw attention to their consciousness of their surroundings.

"It's not like you leave the street when you enter the (Dojunkai apartments)." he says. "There's no division between the inside and the outside, which is rare in a lot of buildings. It gives you this feeling of comfort and intimacy while also being a part of the street outside.

"This kind of awareness is what connects cities and the people who live in them. But it's not just about people and buildings. When you walk off the street into an indoor space, for instance, you still want to be reminded of where you came from, and you want some sort of indication of the outside world, even when you're inside."

Ironically, the legacy of the structure that inspired the Vuitton shop is being cut short. To the deep dismay of architects, community groups and a concerned public, the complex is scheduled to be torn down by the end of the year and will be replaced by a residential and commercial building designed by Tadao Ando.

"Those buildings have formed the street's identity," Aoki laments, adding, "It's because of those buildings that Omotesando has become what it has.

"When they are torn down, they will be replaced by some simplistic structure and the street will lose its personality...It's barbarous, it symbolizes the suicide of a city."

Aoki may sound like a sentimentalist, but he shows no reservations about urban development. What he's concerned about is the function of development to preserve urban identities.

"It's easy to identify architectural continuity in a city like New York," says Aoki, who has designed the facade of the first four levels of the Vuitton flagship store, which is currently under construction. "But it's really difficult in Tokyo, because buildings keep getting built and torn down. It's the same story with the Dojunkai apartments," he explains. "The question here seems not to be how to preserve the scale or proportion of a city, but how to create a scale that can and will be preserved. That's why it's such a shame that the apartments, one of the very few structures in the city that reflect the scale of its surroundings as well as its community, are being destroyed.

"It's not just about simply preserving things the way they are. Cities change all the time, so it's natural that buildings should adapt to them. But there are special things about a city that can be preserved through modern means. Applying both of these elements allows a city to grow naturally."    - Naomi Tajitsu Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer         Daily Yomiuri Shimbun     5 October 2002

Louis Vuitton Resales in Japan

The demand for Louid Vuitton branded goods in Japan is so strong that the Louis Vuitton store in Hong Kong at the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon was where a small rioted errupted.    More than 100 stormed in to the store demanding to be let in.  Thirty-one were arrested after staff refused to sell them  goods, suspect of re-sellers in Japan, where demand exceeds supply

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