With every luxury brands opening boutiques left and right in Asia, and in particular China, some are now taking a different tack to attract attention from their customers: a nicely curated art-cum-exhibition. Valentino is now showing in Singapore, Culture Chanel is showing at the MOCA in Shanghai and soon in April it will be the turn of Diane von Furstenberg to show her touring exhibition "Journey of a Dress” at Pace Gallery Beijing (the show has already shown in Moscow and São Paolo). The exhibition features sketches, designs and the trademark prints that she's produced over four decades, as well as original portraits of her created by friends and admirers like Andy Warhol, Francesco Clemente and Francesco Scavullo. To give the show a local flavor, Pace has asked some of China’s leading artists —conceptual artist Zhang Huan, photographer Hai Bo, painter Li Songsong, and multimedia artist Yi Zhou— to create their own portraits of the fashion diva.
