Our Man In: Istanbul
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is like a litmus test for designer labels. Browsing the wares here is the best way to assess a brand's viability: The more frequent its fakes, the greater its mass-market cachet. Last week, when I braved its halls, the stalls were piled high with Prada and Dolce bags (no surprise), but also with G-Star and Loewe knockoffs (take that, Canal Street). Strangest of all? The piles of ersatz Ed Hardy, which succeeded in looking just as cheap and tacky as the originals, making them probably the best buy there.
The Bazaar wasn't anything like I expected, although there were a few supposedly high-end boutiques tucked in a corner. One of them had an alabaster mannequin posed like a Helmut Newton nude: legs splayed, hands on hips, naked but for an enormous black fur coat suggestively hanging open—Russian-hooker-chic. The stallholders in that section were clearly courting rubles and pounds. The refreshingly direct advance—"Excuse me, where are you from? Can I help you spend some money?"—was repeated, as necessary, in Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, and English.
No doubt it's those international tourists—Russians with private jets, new-moneyed Chinese—behind Starwood's decision to pick Istanbul as its road-test location for the W Hotels chain in Europe. (The branch here will be the lone brand beacon for at least a year, until clones in St. Petersburg, Manchester, Verbier, et al pop up.) The hotel's housed in a cluster of Ottoman-era row houses that were once servants' quarters for the nearby Dolmabahçe Palace, with huge souk-inspired rooms, disco-dark corridors twinkling with pink crystals, and a two-story branch of New York's Spice Market. (Exporting Vongerichten's restaurant to a town that already has a real spice market? Ballsy.)
It's a superb hotel—even days into opening, the staff were suitably slick and smiley—and no wonder, given that the W is the centerpiece of a brand-new luxury retail complex in the Beşiktaş district, which includes brands like Lanvin, Marc Jacobs, and Catherine Malandrino. The rundown old buildings here were lovingly gussied up by developer Serdar Bilgili, another sign of how Istanbul remains a shopping city, just not one where haggling's the standard pricing tactic.
LVMH and PPR-helmed labels have conquered the city; in the last five years, designer boutiques have mushroomed here. Kanyon mall was the first to snag an expat branch of Harvey Nicks, while rival Cevahir is the largest retail complex in Europe. (No wonder those boutiques are thriving, since locals joke that Turks are price-sensitive—they want to pay more, not less.) Istanbul's morphing into Hong Kong with head scarves and better weather. (Hong Kong, of course, will get its own W in just three months' time.)
But at least a few of Istanbul's age-old quirks linger. The Turks are notoriously superstitious. and evil eye signs dangle above the doorways of even minimalist wine bars. They're also on display at the Immigration Hall in Istanbul Airport. Maybe the Department of Homeland Security should take some cues from here.
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3:31:40 PM on
05/15/08
Akaratler district (the succesful renovation project which is the domain of the mentioned brands in Besiktas) give a momentum to a desserted urban environment to morph into a nice but expensive place... Also those desantralized shopping areas give tourist a cause to travel the beautiful city and realize perspectives hidden in its core! Historical places, lovely bosphorus...