Louis Vuitton opens flagship shop in Beijing

French luxury-goods maker, Louis Vuitton (LV), opened its second store at China's World Trade Center in Beijing, Friday, featuring a new collection of merchandise.

The shop sells Vuitton's complete range of luxury products, including trunks, suitcases, travel bags, leather goods, clothes, shoes and deskaccessories.

The shop offers small key wallets, at around 2,000 yuan, or over US$227, and also offers much higher priced jewellery and watches.

To celebrate the opening of the new Beijing store, Vuitton have created Lantern Charm accessories, which are based on the traditional Chinese lantern.

Chinese stars and celebrities, including actress Vicky Zhao; directors Zhang Yimou and Xu Jinglei; Taiwan stars An yixuan and Guo pinchao; and Olympic 100 meter hurdle Champion, Liu Xiang, were invited to celebrate the grand opening.

Due to differences in consumption taxes and other duties, the price of LV products sold on the mainland are about 10 per cent higher than those in Hong Kong and 25 per cent higher than in Europe.

Last year, the company opened a similar shop in Shanghai, and it plans to open another in Hong Kong at the beginning of next month.

"We plan to open an average of two to three stores each year in China," said Yves Carcelle, LV's chairman and chief executive officer.

He also said that there are at least 10 Chinese cities that the company aims to conquer, such as Chongqing, Harbin, Shenyang, Wenzhou and Sanya.

Since launching its first store in Beijing in 1992, LV have opened 12 stores in 10 major mainland cities.

Louis Vuitton is a brand under the world's largest luxury group, the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy (LVMH) Group. It also includes other famous brands, such as Dior, Celine, Fendi, Guerlain, Hennessy and Tag Heuer.

(CRI)

accessory: a subordinate or supplementary item; an adjunct（附加品，附屬物；附件）