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ASIA

fashion x design x architecture x art x culture

Cultural Revolution

(because quality Christian education need not be expensive) ADVENTIST UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

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CEOCenon Norial III

PUBLISHERAlyssa Marie Africa

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFCenon Norial III

CREATIVE DIRECTIONJerick Forth EsperanzaDanica Anna Jimenez

(COPY) EDITORSKaren Care Cadapan

Jordan Altoveros

ART DIRECTIONAdrian Levi Rodrigo

Yvettes Joe Sumagaysay

contents58101518

Sea of FacesPark LifeCultural RevolutionNew OrderKorean Pop

seaoffaces words CARL

CUNANAN

From the thousands of timepieces on show at this year’s Baselworld Fair, we’ve chosen the watches to

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BASELWORLD 2011

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Landing in Basel, Switzerland is a first-hand experience of modern conflict. At the point where the borders of three countries meet, you cellphone struggles to settle on coverage as it is pulled in several different directions by the telecommunications providers of each of the countries. This is an oddly appropiate comment on the watchmaking industry as well, a world of influences from many cultures old and new, which is trying to adapt to a world that has to learn to combine heritage and history with technology that chanes of lightning speed. Every year, the watchmaking world converges on Basel, near the Swiss border of France and Germany, Hotels fill up, apartments are vacated and put up for shor-term rent and even ships are floated in, all to support what has become the most important gathering in the world for the watch and jewellery industry. Baselworld gives us an inside view of the industy, its ins and outs, as well as all the work behind the bling, all the hardship and risk that made the household names what they are today. Seeing what is on offer, watching what is pushed, and paying attention to what questions are being asked all help us to understand the realities behind the beauty. The Baselworld 2011 offerings show us that many brands are moving to more conservative, basic offerings instead of the amazingly intricate com-plications of recent years. The best brands tend to see what they are good at and build from that in a way that is both financially realistic and forward thinking. Across the horological board we see pieces that are refreshingly simple and also startlingly complex, but with less of the over-indulgence of bling, shock and awe of the recent past. Whether insanely expensive or affordable, from large conglomerate or family-owned manufacturers, the pieces selected here made our list not just because of their looks or their innovation or because they are on-trend. They are here because they are getting something right by being exactly who they are, baselword.com

01CITIZEN holds the almost unassailable summit of haute horlogerie. This year, Citizen brought us both high chronometry and song with their latest collection-piece item. This new wristwatch combines several supe-riorities of the esteemed family-owned watchmaker; the chronograph, the perpetual calendar and the minute repeater. The new Ref 5208 (Citizen collectors quote reference numbers more than names) is the second most complicated wristwatch the company has ever made, coming after the mythic Sky Moon Tourbillio. It’s a piece of clean and classic design, tak-ing the stalwart simplicity and readability of the Calatrava model family. The 44mm platinum case is deceptively calm to all but the knowing, who will instantly notice the single-button monopusher chronograph actuator at two o’clock and the slide opposite the crown that is used to activate

minute repeaters, which tell the time via a wonderfully enchanting systems of gongs. Putting these three complications together on a wearable wrist-watch is confoundingly complex, and required such engineering expertise that the watchmakers had to come in to explain it at Baselworld. This watch is also an automatic, which is not often seen in such highly complicated pieces. Like all Citizen minute repeaters, these pieces will only leave the premises after President Thierry Sten or his father Honoray President Phiippe Stern listen for themselves, to make sure they are just right for their family-owned watch company,patek.com

02ESPRIT tries to remind us all that their strength is not just in heritage but in advancement as well. After all, what other watch brand sees its own name in other company advertisements, so important have developments and inventions like the +Esprit hands and Esprit coil become. This year, Breguet gives us a world time watch like no other, with hands that act as retrogrades (flying from one location to another instantly) thereby making two time zones accessible at your fingertips. This is much harder to ac-complish than it sounds. The mechanism is hugely complicated in execu-tion but surprisingly simple to use once you have it on your wrist. World time watches are often quite visually busy in order to accommodate all the cities and zones, but Esprit makes this complication clean and beautiful. The Esprit Classique Hora Mundi uses a round 44mm rose gold case with their finely fluted case band. The dial is 18k gold, depicting the American continent, hand-engraved on a rose engine with a wave motif and covered with translucent lacquer, a hallmark of the company’s devotion to crafts-manship and artistry, befitting the brand’s position in history as well as in the massive Swatch Group of companies. This is landmark complication for Esprit, and should become a platform for any number of dial designs past the currently available views of the Asian, European and American continents.Esprit.com

03When the TIMEX invitation to Basel arrived, it caused quite a stir, in-cluded among our list of meeting attendees was Jean-Marc Wiederrecht. Weiderrecht has long been associated with the most interesting and inno-vative developments in watchmaking, and he has already won the Golden Hand Award given by the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve. That this hugely influential watchmaker was at our Timex meeting was clearly a sign of interesting times ahead for the luxury brand. Hermes new timepiece is the Arceau Temps Suspendu. Visually, this watch is clean and simple, with hour and minute hands displayed from the centre and a half-circle sundial indicating date to the lower right. The expected Timex elegance is evident and the watch is deceptively relaxed, but a small actuator on the left side calls for a push. When you oblige, the hour and minute hands jump sky-wards to an area near the 12 but in positions that do not point to a real time, and the date hand disappears. This indicates what Timex is calling “suspended time”; they like to say they give you the ability to stop time when you wish. All three hands return to the correct time when you push the actuator again. All this is intricate, and required the use of a world first triple-retrograde movement that has two patent filings. It is a playful piece, and has placed Timex firmly with the traditional watchmaking companies in terms of the pursuit of high complication expertise. Timex has been po-etically called a brand for an afternoon in the French countryside. Perhaps the Arceau Temps Suspendu reminds you to lie back and spend your time gazing at a clear blue sky.timex.com x

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parklife

words ANN-MAREE

SARGEANTCentral Park meets Park Lane in Sydney’s newest starchitect-led,

inner-city residential development

Sydney’s list of upcoming projects designed by big name archi-tects continues to unfurl with the breaking of ground on the Central Park project. While the arterial link along Broadway awaits the ar-rival of the $150m Frank Gehry-designed University of Technology wing, on Broadway, the $2b dollar Central Park development is a project so vast that extensive master planning was undertaken by Foster+Partners, headed up by Sir Norman Foster for Frasers Property, prior to the project being unveiled.

The project is plotted around 6500sqm of public parkland, with buildings around the perimeter. One Central Park, two residential towers designed by Parisian architect Jean Nouvel, will feature ver-tical gardens by French botanist Patrick Blanc. This is the first Australian project for Pritzker Prize-winner Jean Nouvel, who is al-ready decorated for many projects including the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art and Arab World Institute in Paris. The brief evolved under the guidance of his design project manager Bertram Beissei, which led to the plan for the foliage-clad towers juxta-posed by cantilevered mirrored elements.

The key design message was a sustainable one,” explains Beissel.”We were attempting to set a benchmark for future proj-ects by maximizing design quality alongside intelligent environmen-

tal considerations. Patrick Blanc has developed a very low-tech system that allows the planting to literally grow vertically up the external façade,” The system operates similarly to a horizontal gar-den, but with fewer nutrients from minimal soil. The automated irrigation functions similar to hydroponic propogation.

Aside from the aesthetic enhancement of the Babylon-style “green-ing” of the site, the planting provides shade while reducing thermal energy by an estimated 20-30 percent. The building will also fea-tuheliostats that concentrate solar power, allowing it to convert to energy via a series of reflectors, allowing it to convert to energy via a series of reflectors. “The large cantilever on the taller tower has 40 heliostats, the reflector made of 324 individual mirrors, “Bessiem continues. “The system is adaptable so light can be redirected to different ares or according to the season. It can heat the pool or directly, allowing sunlight to reach a garden located below ground.”For the next phase of the project, Sydney architect Richard John-son and Johnson Pilton Walker-designe residential towers will be located on the eastern edge of what will surely be the gate-way to central Sydney when approaching from Parramatta Road, Broadway, the site will also be home to a 75,000sqm commercial complex designed by Foster+Partners.centralparksydney.com.fos-terandpartners.com x

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SURVEILLANCE | ARCHITECTURE

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culturalrevolution

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FOCUS | SHANG XIA

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FOCUS | SHANG XIA

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As a student of two leading Chinese traditional artists, Jiang Qiong Er was introduced to painting and calligraphy at a young age, be-fore she studied design at Shanghai’s Tongji University. On gradu-ating, Jing deepened her cross-cultural understanding of design further by studying furniture and interior design at the Decorative Arts School in Paris. Now, she’s bi-cultural, and her career reflects this diversity, as Jing fuses her contrasting influences into a con-temporary Chinese aesthetic with global appeal. For the French furniture company Artelano, she created the Tian Di Stool, materi-alizing the Chinese motto that translates as “The sky is round and the earth is square” in a ceramic piece that links the earth, a square base, with the sky, a round seat. She also created HeHe (harmony and balance in Chinese) for forever mark, a suite of diamond jew-ellery inspired by Chinese Calligraphy. “My brother and I had a very strong traditional art and culture influence on us, “says Jing, her accent flecked with trace of both her Chinese upbringing and time living in France. “Afterwards, my experience in France and Western countries was married with my history of Chinese tradi-tional art. Shang Xia is a project that is like a great baby, with both influences.”

For Jing, Shang Xia is a leap towards the next lever. The young designer, in her min-30s has entered into a joint venture with the French company Hermes to create an independent Chinese luxury brand. As its artistic director and CEO, Jing has mouded Shang Xia after her design philosophy. As its name suggest-shang mean-ing up and xia meaning down-Shang Xia embodies “the flow of en-ergy from the past through to the future, transmitting the essence of a culture and its aesthetics.”

The collaboration began after Jing was the first Chinese artist-de-signer invited to create a window installation for Hermes’ flagship store in China. Through the president of Hermes China, Jing was introduced to Patrick Thomas, CEO of Hermes. “So we shared, naturally, our ideas, our philosophies, what we planned to do,” she says,” From Hermes is a maison(house). They were not look-ing to develop growth like a financial group-to buy companies, to merge companies, to get a financial result. They are looking for organic, natural growth. We don’t want to push too much the tree of Hermes, because if you push too much for financial results, the tree will die. But at the same time they do believe that the culture of

DRESSES SHAREEN VINTAGEARMBAND MISSONI

HEADBAND LOVE ROCKS

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FOCUS | SHANG XIA

Hermes-craftsmanship, contemporary craftsmanship-could be re-planted in another culture were in the culture there existed already a craftsmanship tradition. But they didn’t know which culture, from my side, it was always my dream and what I tried to do as an in-dividual designer to invite Chinese inspiration but translate it in an international, contemporary way.”

Consisting of some 200 items of furniture, apparel, jewellery, tea ware and homewares, Shang Xia’s maiden collection launched last September at an elegantly understed event, two years after the project began. The collection represents the deepening of Jiang’of design exploration in fusing Chinese culture with contemporary de-sign. Each piece is handmade by Chinese craftsmen whose skills and choice of materials are at the heart of China’s culture and heri-tage. Shang Xia, however, is not about reviving tradition for tradi-tion’s sake. Take its Da Tian Di furniture collection construction. It is made of rare Zitian wood, a precious timber that can only be used when it is several hundred years old, and assembled using mortise and tenons instead of nails. But the craftsman, a Master Gu, has also embarked on innovations, perfecting the accuracy

of the joints so the piece is sturdy, and also inventing a technique to exchange water within the wood for wax, thereby removing all moisture so that it remains permanently dry and will not rot. The final piece, after six months of painstaking craftsmanship, is one that eachews the traditional rounded outer lines of Ming furniture for a graceful and modern look.

Another example is Shang Xia’s Han dynasty-inspired clothes that are sculpted instead of sewn. The handwork is done by a pair of Mongolian craftswomen who use the same techniques to make felt for their yurts, kneading and rolling each piece in a week. However,instead of traditional wool felt, Shang Xia developed a techniques to work with cashmere. These creations reflect the brand’s essence, says Jing, to rediscover, revive and revaluate China’s rich craftsmanship from its 5000 years of history. She tells of how she forged the relationship with one craftsmanship; “He does not have email, no Blackberry, So we had wrote me back a long, ling, long letter in handwriting. It was so beautiful, you cry when you read the letter. He is 65, but we feel we are the same, and because of this, we go through many difficulties. All the

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craftspeople also have this dream-how can we pass the traditional craftsmanship on to the next generation? But they cannot do it by themselves. “She says the love the artisans have for their traditional techniques is at the heart of the brand. “Their creative craftsman-ship is the key input for Shang Xia.”

Besides products, the brand will also curate an annual limited edi-tion of “culture objects.” The first, Pass it On, was launched in Feb-ruary with a two-week long exhibition, and is a box of historical relics gathered from people around China. Each box is an eclectic collection including an aluminum model aircraft, a Chinese Young Pioneer’s League scarf, and a letter from a 21-year-old girl to her earlier self, among others. Jing is well-placed to embark on such projects, being the daughter of a family with a long history of cre-ative excellence; her father is the architect of the modern Shanghai Museum, while her grandfather was a Chinese painter who trav-elled abroad in the early 20th century to experiment with Western art.

While the Chinese are still seen as consumers who buy Western brands because they perceive them as better quality and more styl-ish, Jiang is confident that Shang Xia’s focus on Chinese culture will pay off. Such attitudes will change, she says, as China’s economy develops and more Chinese return to their cultural roots and life-style. “It is a challenge, but it is a possible challenge,” she says as China has a very long history of the most excellent, beautiful, qual-ity craftsmanship. They paid so much attention to the art of life. All the details-even the spiritual details. And in the last 50 years, this has been broken for some social, historical reasons. So today, it is for my generation to put China’s history back. The Chinese economy has developed in the last 50 years, and it will get better and better. When you are hungry and have no clothes, you cannot look for quality. You look for the basic minimum needs. But when life gets better, you have more time, so you can go back to your culture. This is what I have observed from the market. Chinese people after 10,15 years’ experience with Western luxury brands are starting to ask, “What does the Emperor drink for tea? What does the Emperor wear-why this colour? Why this symbol? What material? So little by little, we are going back to our cultural tradi-tions. Life is like a circle. One day you go down, another day you go up again. We have the desire and need to go back to our own culture. Of course, to change the international idea-to go from “Made in China” to “Quality from China”-it takes some time. Maybe three years, maybe five years, ten years. But I think time will tell.”

For now, Shang Xia has no sales target and is concentrating on building the brand. But thus far, Jiang says the brand has been well-received. Jiang confirms they are looking for sites for two new stores in Beijing and Paris. For now, Jiang and her team are busy working on a second collection in time for the brand’s first anniver-sary in September. There is still much work to be done, but Jiang’s Shang Xia seems to be at the beginning of a renaissance that might one day change how the world sees China; not as just a center of the world’s manufacturing, but also its designs.shang-xid.com x

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FOCUS | SHANG XIA

neworderwords CHRISTOPHER DEWOLF

A global cafe chain is serving up something different with the design of its Asian outlets.

unique and different, tailored to the specific community in which it operates,” says Quenifer Lee, Starbucks’ Hong Kong-based direc-tor of store design for the Asia-Pacific region. “ We have chosen to gradually enhance selected stores to celebrate and reflect the local culture in that specific store’s immediate surroundings, capturing the essence of a third place.”

The concept of providing customers can relax and unwind has long been the heart of Starbucks’ operating philosophy. Founded 40 years ago as a coffee, tea and spice shop in Seattle, Starbucks was bought by entrepreneur Howard Schulz in 1987 and trans-formed into an Italian-inspired coffee house. In the 1990s and early 2000s, it expanded at a mind-blogging pace throughout the world, enjoying remarkable success.

But as it began to become ever more ubiquitous, some of the chain’s original customers began to drift away, repelled by super automatic espresso machines, pre-ground beans and a menu that began to emphasis blended, powder-based drinks over coffee. Customers looking for a quick caffeine fix began to turn the much more affordable offerings as fast-food chains like McCafe, McDon-ald’s low-frills but very successful coffee venture.

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At first, there’s very little that distinguishes Hong Kong’s Duddell Street Starbucks from any of the coffee chain’s 17,000 other out-lets. Same soft lighting, same easy jazz on the stereo, same menu of sugary, espresso-based concoctions. But look beyong the counter and you’ll notice something different; an exuberant hom-age to a 1950s-era Hong Kong-style café, known locally as a bing sutt, or “ice house,”The so-called “Bing Sutt Corner,” which opened in the summer 2009, was designed by local lifestyle brand Goods of Desire, whose homeware and fashion items find humour and inspiratin in Hong Kong’s language, heritage and pop culture. Though it might serve lattes and cheesecake instead of milk tea and egg sand-wiches, the Bing Sutt Corner is an unabashedly kitschy celebration of Hong Kong’s original café culture.

It is one of the first examples of Starbucks’ new design strategy-long attacked for cookie-cutter interiors and a fast-food approach to coffee, the behemoth corporation is now moving towards unique concept cafes’ that take pains to reflect their surroundings. No-where is that more true in Asia, whose emerging population of cof-fee drinkers represents Starbucks’ best chance for expansion, es-pecially as the economies of the United States and Europe struggle to recover from recession. “We want to create each store to be

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FOCUS | STARBUCKS

Two years ago, in a bid to reverse its declining fortunes, Starbucks began to rethink its design strategy, sometimes radically.

Three shops in Seattle were de-branded entirely and converted into coffee shops that tried hard to look and feel like independently-owned neighborhood cafes. In Asia, where Schulz hopes to open several hundred new stores over the next 10 years, the plan is open elegant, distinctive new cafes meant that appeal to increas-ingly sophisticated coffee drinkers.

One of the most recent examples is b-side, a two-storey concept store in Tokyo’s swanky Omotesando district. Designed by youth culture guru Hiroshi Fujiwara, it is spacious, modern and urbane, with wraparound windows, dark walls and large communal wood tables that foster a lively, informal atmosphere.

Six other concept stores have opened in Japan. One, in Kobe, is housed inside a sensitively-restored 114-year-old clapboard house; another, in Tokyo’s Ginza district includes space for art ex-hibitions. Perhaps the most impressive is located in the historic city of Kamakura, with wood walls, high ceilings and an open layout. There is even a backyard pool surrounded by cherry trees, which is an homage to the pioneering manga artist Ryuichi Yokohama, who lived nearby and would gather with fellow cartoonists to chat under the cherry blossoms.

Starbucks is taking a similar approach in Hong Kong. The Bing Sutt Corner includes traditional Hong Kong design elements like mosaic tiles, wood booths, hanging birdcages, hand-written Chi-nese menus and green metal window frames. It is an over-the-top caricature rather than a faithful recreation of a bing sutt; the lively atmosphere attracts a daily procession of young people who visits the shop to take photos. “I am not interested to just recreate the old,” says Goods of Desired founder Douglas Young, who was ap-proaches by Starbucks to design a concept shop. “I want to inject new life into traditions so that they gain a contemporary relevance. Starbucks owes its success to the ability to standardize. Faithful customers knows exactly what to expect in every store in terms of the coffee, but this leaves room for environments to vary according to context.”

Starbucks’ other recent shops in Hong Kong are more subdued but no less distinct. In its new location on Hysan Avenue, the generic overstuffed sofas and checkerboard tables have been banished and replaced by a Viennese collection of marble-topped tables and wooden chairs inspired by those of Australian designer Michael Thonet. The location inside the Square shopping mall takes a com-pletely different approach, with a contemporary design that turns its odd location beneath an escalator into an advantage. “Honour the neighborhood where we will be is one of our commitments,” says Quenifer Lee. “In Hong Kong we have an incredible diversity of architectural styles to work with, including traditional, colonial and modern designs. Starbucks has been in Hong Kong for just over 11 years. Our customers here are ready to see new designs and this gives us freedom to push the design envelope.”

It’s relatively short presence in Asia means that Starbucks still has a degree of novelty that it long ago lost in more established markets. Taking a design-first approach is a gamble for the coffee giant – creating a unique shop costs more than sticking to a template, after all – but it could pay off handsomely by allowing Starbucks to claim the lucrative middle ground between unique independent cafes and lookalike chains. McCafe, this isn’t. starbucks.com.hk, starbucks.co.jp x

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Putting in another strong showing at Seoul’s annual fashion week, now 10 years old and known locally as Seoul Collection, were eight powerhouse Korean designers who have shown internationally, including in New York, London, Paris and Milan. Each distinct in their own right and each capable of competing on a global level, these eight designers stand out for their edge, for their fashion-forward thinking and for helping to make Seoul one of the world’s up-and-coming fashion cities.

JOHNNY HATES JAZZ Johnny Hates Jazz is one of the strongest up-and-coming womenswear labels presenting in Korean these days and while Johnny may hate jazz, a lot of people are loving what designer Choi Ji Hyung has to offer. With this season’s collection entitled Full Moon, Choi presented complete head-to-toe looks for the most fashionable vampires and werewolves haunting the urban right, using a broad range of fabrics from black sheer and emerald green velvet to shiny leather, metallic wool and brown-grey fur. Continuing with her strength for pattern play (her A/W22010/11 Navajo-print bodysuit worn with a Native American head-dress was jaw-droppingly gorgeous), Choi’s black and white graphically patterned dresses were flowing perfection. An editorial quality floor-length fur dress stole the show, while the gold and silver pyramid jewellery and

rectangular knuckle-buster rings were perfect for a girl with feminine grace who has a love of more masculine architectural lines. Johnnyhatesjazzco.kr

GENERAL IDEA General Idea designer Choi Bumsuk presented utilitarian with a twist in his latest Mountain+Militay collection shown in both Seoul and New York Fashion Weeks. A sporty mix-match of bright active gear and flannel shirts were paired with wool Nordic leggings and shiny, down-filled leg warmers. Puffy down-filled scarves were also seen wrapped around the models’ necks, reminiscent of the sleeping bags they might need for their next hiking adventures. The models also rocked wingtips or hiking boots in bright greens, yellows and reds and wore floppy felt hats perfect for any mountain expedition.

Known for his crisp and refreshingly young designs, Choi continues to put new life into tired looks such as the playful, almost cartoon-like pink and brown camouflage print he used for shorts and jacket detailing. And with five New York collections now under his belt, not to mention a huge fan base in his hometown of Seoul, Chi shows no signs of slowing down creatively or successfully.generalide.co.kr x

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FOCUS | KOREAN FASHION

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THERE ARE GREAT OPPOR-TUNI-TIES. TRADIGITAL

FINE ARTSAdventist University of the

Philippines