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Louis Vuitton to Open its First Travel Retail Store at South Korea's Incheon International Airport

Louis Vuitton has received a number of inquiries encouraging them to open a travel retail outlet, but the French luxury brand has rejected each and every one of them. Until now, that is, as incoming reports state that the iconic marque will open its first airport location at Korea's Incheon International Airport in the second half of 2011.

The decision to green-light the landmark location was reportedly made after LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault personally visiting Incheon to see its signature Airstar Avenue duty-free mall. The South Korean market remains a vital one for Louis Vuitton, which continues to out-sell rivals such as Gucci and Coach in the northeast Asian country. The store at Incheon is expected to attract travelers with an appetite for luxury from Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China as well.

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Tags: airstar avenue, duty free, incheon, incheon airport, incheon international airport, koea, korea, louis vuitton, lvmh, seoul, south korea, travel retail

All Systems Go for Koolhaas' Prada Transformer

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

Chanel may have just pulled the plug (as we reported last month) on its Zaha Hadid-designed Mobile Art Pavilion, but Prada is going ahead with plans for an even more ambitious project. Despite the economy, the luxury Italian fashion house just began construction on the Prada Transformer, a tetrahedron-shaped "transformative building" designed by starchitect Rem Koolhaas (rendering above), on the grounds of Gyeonghui Palace in Seoul, Korea. Koolhaas, who won the Pritzker Prize in 2000 and also designed the Prada flagship store in Manhattan, describes the building as a "dynamic and living organism'' because it transforms itself into different structures to suit various events. The location of the project, the single largest communications platform for the Prada group worldwide in 2009, speaks to the importance of the Asian market in a depressed luxury goods environment.

Scheduled to open at the end of March, the Prada Transformer will stage a range of art, cinema, culture and fashion events though August. the 65-ft. high tetrahedron is composed of four different shapes, a hexagon, cross, rectangle and circle. "Once a month, cranes will lift and rotate the structure into a different facade and floor plate configuration," the Korea Times reports. "When rotated, each side will be the venue of a different cultural program." On the outside, the entire structure will be wrapped with an elastic translucent membrane. Prada partnered with LG Electronics (makers of the Prada cell phone) and the Hyundai Motor Company on the ambitious scheme, which if successful will probably travel to other cities as well.

Tags: Architecture, Asia, Chanel, Italian fashion, ItalianFashion, Korea, Prada, Pritzker Prize, PritzkerPrize, Rem Koolhaas, RemKoolhaas, Seoul

The Prada Hyundai

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

Can Prada make a Hyundai chic? The famed Italian fashion house has designed a version of Hyundai's upscale sedan, the Genesis which will be exhibited at the the Seoul Motor Show next April. There will be just three of these cars and two will be auctioned for charity at the Prada Transformer, a temporary building which will host cultural, artistic and fashion events in Seoul.

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Tags: hyundai, hyundai genesis, HyundaiGenesis, korea, prada, prada transformer, PradaTransformer, seoul