Conspicuous Consumption Singapore Style

"Singapore Girls"

My friend now

    I just got back from a lovely weekend away in Singapore, being shown around by a friend who grew up there and who was actually one of the "Singapore Airline Girls" of yore.  Even now she takes care of herself in a most admirable way.

   So she arranged for us to stay in the Mandarin Orchard Road Hotel, which is a pretty fancy-dancy place to spend a couple of nights, believe me!  There are often top-level cars parked outside upscale hotels just to set the tone.  But this hotel had real Singaporeans' fancy vehicles parked in front for real.  There were Porches, Ferraris and this white Maserati, to mention but a few.  I didn't even bother to take pictures of the lowly BMWs and Mercedes Benzes.  But to tell the truth, if I were the owner of one of those drop-dead-valuable cars, I really wouldn't want it parked right there with all the taxis pulling up, excursion vans loading and unloading, and ordinary folk milling around with their luggage.  

Maserati at our hotel

      Anyway, strings were pulled and we got upgraded to the Executive Suite, which was just the frosting on the cake.  Orchard Road is the epitome of high-class shopping in Singapore, or it was until the even more hoity-toity Marina Bay Sands complex opened recently.   

A very expensive mountain of brand-name bags!

    When we checked in, we got our first glimpse of Singaporean conspicuous consumption at a one-day hotel conference room sale of really high-end bags and shoes.  There were all the brand names I know, like Jimmy Choo, the shoe designer who put Malaysia on the fashion map.  In the picture up there my friend is holding a Christian Louboutin shoe -- the ones that always have a red sole.  I'm tossing around these names as though they were actually familiar to me, but I know what I know about them thanks to "Sex and the City," truth be told.  There were literally MOUNTAINS of designer bags and walls of brand-name shoes.  Those things had price tags in the thousands of dollars, Singaporean or US.  We scurried out of there empty-handed -- no surprise there!

      Of course we eventually made our way to Marina Bay Sands since it's all the rage nowadays (and because there was an art show I wanted to see at the ArtScience Museum there.)  My two traveling companions wanted to hit the casino for a bit of "recreational gaming" after having had an "adult beverage" or two.  I didn't want to do that, so I said I'd browse around "The Shops at Marina Bay."  Well, silly me!  There was nothing, and I mean nothing but brand-goods stores.  I wasn't dressed well enough to even set foot in those places and risk the derision of the staff inside.  There were NO "ordinary mortal" shops in the part of the complex we first visited. The place looked like the fanciest Las Vegas shopping areas multiplied a thousand times over.  In all fairness, later we did find the stores where you might actually find something to buy, but I still didn't leave any of my money behind there. 

A water feature at Marina Bay Sands

    I won't put in any pictures of "The Shops at Marina Bay Sands" because one set of brand goods stores looks like another, if you ask me.  Rather, I'll attach a picture of "The Toilet," which is a center-court water feature there at the shopping mall.  I've seen many a water feature in my life, but this one is the ugliest I've ever laid eyes on.  It acts just like a toilet, with water swirling inside a big bowl before it all washes out into the pool below.  You can't help but think of a commode when you see the water flushing out of it.  Whoever designed it clearly had a gap between the conception and the final realization of the design plan.
   Well, I plan to post again soon about this little Singapore excursion and next time I'll be more positive, I promise!