Word: gucci
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first whiff of something rotten in the air?and steps directly into a city overeager to offer its wares. The first building to confront new arrivals is a six-storied, mirrored monument to China's status as the world's counterfeit capital. Shops display perfect replicas of Armani suits, Gucci handbags, Nike trainers, Rolex watches, Cartier jewelry, as well as racks of pirated videos and discs. Outside, televisions air graphic advertisements for clinics offering breast enlargements and other cosmetic surgeries. Dr. Cao Mengjun says his Fuhua Plastic and Aesthetic Hospital sees more than 2,000 people a year, half from...
Vacationing Japanese often take advantage of cheaper prices on items other than Gucci scarves and Louis Vuitton bags. Dentists and doctors in Taiwan and Thailand are increasingly on the tourist trail from Tokyo: a round-trip ticket to Taipei and a visit to a dentist - many of them U.S.-trained - cost less than a lunchtime appointment with a tooth doc at home. Japanese travelers are also increasingly making a beeline for luxury services at bargain prices, like foot massages in Taiwan and herbal steam spas in South Korea...
...generation gap could lay in the tastes of fashionable Japan. Although Japanese consumers buy the vast majority of Yamamoto, Miyake and Comme des GarCons merchandise, they are fascinated with what the Western world is wearing. The stock of international fashion conglomerates like LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton and the Gucci Group can rise or fall depending on the strength of the yen and the Japanese economy. With good reason: Japanese shoppers account for some 32% of Gucci and more than 45% of Louis Vuitton brand sales. Japanese consumers, says Gucci CEO Domenico De Sole, "like brands that are truly international...
Takizawa does greet the mostly Japanese well-wishers after his show; two days later, while waiting for Akira Onozuka's Zucca show to begin, he goes virtually unnoticed. Compare that with the presence of Tom Ford, creative director of the Gucci Group, who caused major gridlock at the Les AnnEes de Pop opening at the Pompidou Center. "They don't have the sex factor," Self-Service's Koller says of the Japanese designers. "Fashion today is about being a pop star...
This reticence may be part of the reason no Japanese designer has been named to take over any of the great Paris fashion houses. Admits Gucci's De Sole: "We look at people who are most successful in the market." LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault says of the Japanese, "They are further out. It's easier to get in touch with a Dutch designer or a British designer or even a New York designer when you are in Paris." Arnault did include Kenzo Takada in his group until Takada's retirement last year - when Frenchman Gilles Rosier took the helm...