A HOTEL with at least 38 swimming pools deserves a plug.
The ultra-luxe Capella opened its colonial-style doors to 300 guests last Tuesday night for a spring-summer showing.
Uber-brand Gucci launched the first half of its 2009 collection, a clutch of its regular clientele could not wait for the clothes to reach the catwalk, and were already wearing them on their well-spa-ed backs.
'I think it's awesome,' one cooed.
I thought she meant the fresh new property development on Sentosa offering 111 rooms, 61 suites, 38 villas with private swimming pools, but no, she was oohing Gucci's florals and jungle print.
The luxury clothing brand was the first to launch an event in this hotel. One of the Gucci-clad socialites said she had booked a room for her children (celebutantes?) to enjoy. The Capella ('chapel' in Italian) starts at $750 a night for a standard room. The South China Sea view from the rooms with panoramic windows is a dream.
You'd expect nothing less though, from the Singapore landed gentry family with a speed dial to Norman Foster when it comes to their properties, both private and public.
Baron Foster of Thames Bank, to accord him his honorific, is one of Britain's most prolific architects of landmark buildings. See his work, our Expo MRT station.
He has restored those colonial buildings from 1880s to improved former glory. It was like staring at the granddaddy of Raffles Hotel and expecting Scarlett O'Hara and her petticoats to come bounding down the lawn.
Instead, I collided with a daughter of the hotel developer's. She was not in Gucci, all her energy is channelled into championing the plight of the unfortunate. 'I'm just showing some people around the hotel,' she said almost apologetically.
The rest of the other people, besides liveried staff and crew, were either in Gucci, in black, or in statements. That is, clothes that say something about you.
Some of the things they state: I-need-to-be-the-centre-of-attention, I'm-media-so-I-can-wear-anything, Dress-code?-I'm-here-for-the-free-drinks.
Celebs, discernible media, stylists, and VIP customers got front row for the show of Gucci's men's and women's collections.
The men's turned heads - it was rock and hip and wild, with men in pink (fuchsia then). The willowy catwalk women in purple resembled stalks of lavender. You can get a Gucci item from $100 to $20,000.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
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