Marc On Shanghai, The LV Express, And Keeping Runway Shows Special

by Samantha Randazzo | 5:30 pm, July 20th, 2012

Marc Jacobs and the Louis Vuitton Express have just made their big debut in Shanghai, where the designer recreated his breathtaking fall 2012 Paris show and celebrated the re-opening of the brand’s enormous Maison store.

WWD met up with Jacobs at the Park Hyatt the night before the show to chat about his first impressions of the largest city in China:

“When we first arrived it was dark, and seeing all the lights, I just thought, ‘Wow, it’s so futuristic-looking. The little time I’ve been here so far, I’ve enjoyed, and it looks cool. … It’s not like I’ve gone out late at night. I haven’t been too adventurous. I’ve not walked around the shops or done anything like that.”

He also spilled what it was like to do an encore of the show:

“It was so funny to see everything ready and made and finished, because the frenzy to put on this show in Paris was so different. [There] we were holding up one sleeve of an ostrich jacket and looking for a bolt of fabric that wasn’t in the right color but would eventually arrive in the right color later that evening.…The atmosphere downstairs [here] was so calm.”

Jacobs told WWD that LVMH Chairman Bernard Arnault wants to build up the brand’s presence in Asia, which was the reason for the show being brought to Shanghai. But the designer also said that when putting on events like this, you have to be careful not to cheapen the effect:

“You have to be a little bit careful. I think there’s something very special about doing something like this, if it isn’t something you do all the time. It all sounds very exciting, but then when you read too often of the same thing, it sort of feels like, ‘Well, that is what everyone is doing’.…it doesn’t have the rarity or special, you know, feeling.”

We hear ya, Marc — it would be incredibly sad to ruin the magic of runway shows. Not that we would object to seeing this one in New York, of course.

[WWD]

Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton Fall 2012 LVMH Marc Jacobs