Hong Kong: In the mood for shopping
If you thought that in Hong Kong, you were going to find the swinging and swaying silhouettes of Wong Kar Wai’s women disappearing into a curl of smoke, then you have another thing coming to you. Here, a woman is above all an avid shopper embarked on the eternal pursuit of the most exclusive monogrammed purse and the latest top brand court shoes. Headed for the city full of paradoxes...
A city full of paradoxes
With the buildings that have just recently emerged out of the ground, filling the skies, brandishing their neon advertising signs just like so many crowns, visitors can’t help but becoming stiff-necked before such architectural feats: welcome to Hong-Kong! The city with avant-garde skyscrapers, continuous swarming crowds, a kaleidoscope of colours. An eternal futuristic city, devoid of exoticism but where the past, however, emerges from time to time. Is it in these junks next to luxurious ferries? Is it in these food stands at the foot of brightly shining towers or in these trams of another era, vague phantoms of outrageous limousines? In fact, the memory of the past is never far away. You cannot burn 5000 years of Chinese tradition on the altar of capitalism. On the contrary! Here Feng Shui art promotes an architecture conductive to the free circulation of the dollar. Here and there Taoist temples welcome offerings to protect the faithful against a possible crash, one proof that a dialogue between the past and the present is still the salutary grace. A deep-root culture of paradoxes. Disconcerting.
I shop therefore I am!
Shopping is the favourite pastime of the average female of Hong Kong. Shopping on the island has reached an absolutely frenetic pace. Passion for easily recognizable brands, high income, ongoing sales or yet opening hours that are the most flexible, obviously explain this rise in consumption, but that is undoubtedly not the gist of it all. Like any hierarchical society, Hong-Kong is eager for social prestige and luxury plays the role of an influential and distinctive sign of prestige. Also to compensate for their tiny but however expensive apartments, and limited travelling possibilities (HK still dreams of five-week paid vacations...), the entire salary of a fashionitas is spent without any guilt pangs, on fashion. Top brand handbags, top-of-the-range shoes, tons of brands, nothing is too beautiful for the women of Hong Kong, even if it means ending up in debt due to multiplying easily obtainable loans. An Eldorado for international luxury brands for whom the rise in disproportioned flagships is, without a doubt, only the tip of the iceberg...
Janvier 2009
