AFICIONADOS of luxury goods were given a treat this week when French fashion brand Louis Vuitton opened not just one, but two, stores in the city. And it gets better. Next year the first Louis Vuitton Maison Store on the Chinese mainland will open in Shanghai after a six-month renovation of its Plaza 66 outlet, reports Michelle Zhang.

Louis Vuitton, the luxury fashion brand, celebrated a world first earlier this week when it opened two stores in the same city on the same day.

"Shanghai is very special for us," says Yves Carcelle, chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, at the opening of the French company's Pudong Global Store in the newly opened IFC Mall on Wednesday.

Located in the heart of Lujiazui in the Pudong New Area, the six-story retail complex is Shanghai's newest high-end shopping destination.

The same day, Louis Vuitton unveiled its Huaihai Global Store in the recently renovated Lippo Plaza in downtown Shanghai. Huaihai Road is undergoing a major face-lift to retrieve its past glories as the city's most elegant shopping street.

"The two new stores represent a renewal of our commitment to a harmonious and fruitful partnership with Shanghai and China," Carcelle says.

"Everything in Shanghai for the last two to three years has been focused on the World Expo 2010," Christopher Zanardi-Landi, president of Louis Vuitton China, says.

"We thought it'd be a great thing for us to be able to launch two stores, one in Puxi and the other in Pudong, at the time of the opening of the World Expo."

He says the two stores are very different in terms of design, ambience and product arrangement, but also have something in common.

"In any city where we have more than one store, we want to make sure that our customers have different experiences when they visit each store," he says.

"However, the product choices we offer in the two stores are the same, just as what you see in Louis Vuitton stores in Paris, Hong Kong or anywhere else in the world. Meanwhile, we put a huge emphasis on training to make sure that our customers receive the same service in any of our stores."

Zanardi-Landi describes the Huaihai store as being "vibrant, young and fashionable," very much like Huaihai Road, where there is a lot of traffic and which is filled with energy. The Pudong store, on the other hand, is "warm, cozy and masculine," echoing the environment where it is located: the city's financial center surrounded by tall, large buildings.

"What we bring to Shanghai is really world class," he says. "The two new Shanghai stores are world-class stores which could sit very happily in New York, Paris, London or any other major fashion capital in the world.

"They might even be the best because they are the newest," he says. "We really want to bring our customers in Shanghai the best experience possible."

Louis Vuitton opened its first store on the Chinese mainland in 1992 in Beijing's Peninsula Hotel. It opened its first store in Shanghai in 1995. With the two new Shanghai outlets, the company now operates 32 stores in 25 cities on the Chinese mainland and has plans for six more this year.

Next year, it will launch the first Louis Vuitton Maison Store on the Chinese mainland in Shanghai, at the current location of its Plaza 66 Global Store on Nanjing Road W.

The Louis Vuitton Maison Store is the most luxurious of the label's stores worldwide.

The exterior of the Plaza 66 store is covered by a giant Louis Vuitton trunk at present as the facade is being upgraded.

"It's not just there to look pretty," Zanardi-Landi says.

The store will be closed for six months from February next year for renovations but a temporary outlet will be open during the period.

A Beijing Maison Store is also under construction to be launched shortly after the opening of the Shanghai Maison Store.

The Plaza 66 store features a Louis Vuitton "atelier," a workshop where a range of special order services, including made-to-order, custom-made, hot stamping and painting, are provided. It was the French luxury house's first atelier outside France, as well as the first of its kind in a Louis Vuitton retail store.

The workshop is in two parts. One is the Atelier Salon where artisans from France, Italy and Switzerland demonstrate how they work on a trunk, a handbag, a pair of shoes or a watch using traditional methods.

"If you visit any of our ateliers in France you will see that we basically still do everything by hand in a very artisan way," Zanardi-Landi says. "We'd like to show a little bit of our 'savoir faire' knowledge here in Shanghai, so that people understand the time and effort that goes into making a bag, a watch or any of our products."

The other is the special order room providing exclusive order services for VIP customers who have special needs for their traveling accessories.

"It is the business that we still do exactly the same way as Mr Louis Vuitton did at the very beginning of his career," he says.

Patrick Louis Vuitton, the fifth generation of the Vuitton family, is in charge of the special order department.

"The special order business has grown quickly since we brought this room to Shanghai only a short while ago," he says.

A Chinese customer once ordered a case to hold a TV, a DVD player and a coffee machine so that he could carry them with him wherever he travels.

"People always ask me what Louis Vuitton is doing specially for a specific store, or specially for Shanghai," he says. "In fact, we don't look at it like that. We only want to make sure what we can do specially for you."

The Universe according to LV

Huaihai Global Store

The Louis Vuitton Huaihai Global Store is expected to become yet another landmark on the famous shopping street, considered one of the city's most elegant.

The store in renovated Lippo Plaza on Huaihai Road M. covers 1,475 square meters, with sales space of 963 square meters.

Designed by internationally acclaimed architect Peter Marino, the two-story exterior facade is encrusted with 42,000 Louis Vuitton monogram flowers and employs a programmable system of LED lights.

In the center of the store is the "Stairway to Heaven," a spiral staircase designed by Marino using hanging cloud sculptures made of layers of patterned glass.

The Women's Leather Goods Area on the first floor features Louis Vuitton's first bags bar counter on the Chinese mainland.

Three antique Louis Vuitton trunks dating back to the 1920s are on display in the Luggage Area.

Customers will be greeted by a porcelain sculpture, "Beijing Memory," by local artist Li Xiaofeng, at the entrance of the Women's Universe on the second floor.

Pudong Global Store

Housed in the newly opened IFC Mall in Pudong's Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, the Louis Vuitton Pudong Global Store is the French luxury house's seventh global store and the 32nd outlet on the Chinese mainland.

Also designed by architect Marino, the store is different from the Huaihai store in design and ambience. Covering 1,736 square meters with a sales area of 962 square meters, it is the world's largest single-level LV store.

The external facade is covered by a huge pane of glass etched with the LV logo. The LED lighting system produces dramatic special effects at night.

The Luggage and Watch Area in the middle of the store connects the Men's Universe on one side with the Women's Universe on the other. The ceiling is painted in giant Chinese calligraphy made of gold leaf by New York City-based artist Arturo Herrerra, who created it on site. Two trunks, including an antique trunk made in 1935, are on display.

Plaza 66 Global Store

The exterior of the Louis Vuitton Plaza 66 Global Store is covered by a giant trunk these days. The largest LV store in the Asia Pacific region when it was launched in 2004, the store is undergoing a major renovation to become the first Louis Vuitton Maison Store on the Chinese mainland next year.

The Plaza 66 Global Store features an atelier, a workshop providing a range of special order services, including made-to-order, custom-made, hot stamping and painting. It is LV's first atelier located within a store anywhere in the world.

The workshop is divided into two parts, including a salon where customers can watch the creation of traditional trunks and classic leather products by LV artisans from Paris.

In the special-order salon, customers can place orders for specific traveling accessories. On display are some of the most unique Louis Vuitton pieces, which were made to contain everything from games and gadgets to wines, watches, whisky and champagne.