Marketing techniques have grown more creative over the years. Not that long ago you might have attended a Chivas or Hennessey party, or perhaps an F1 or Dolce & Gabanna one. These days all sorts of parties throw by or sponsored by big name brands in the name of marketing and branding. Need some free booze for your next party? Just throw up some promotional materials, and off you go!

Now Vogue Magazine has jumped into the fray, with something a big step back from these shindigs we are all used to, but something a little more than an ordinary advertising display. The difference is all in the money that’s spent. It’s what you might call an “exhibition” celebrating Vogues 1^st anniversary in China. A two part exhibition residing in Xintiandi, you might mistake it as part of the scenery.

One of these displays is located in Xintiandi Park. This Romanesque structure is suggestive of Vogue’s long history (being founded in the US in the late 1800’s), but does little more than provide a themed display with pretty lights. Filled with pictures, the only text is an unabashed summarization of how wonderful the magazine is.

The second part of the display is located in Xintiandi South end, in the Mall on the second floor. Adorned in red and countless images of models and magazine covers, you will get a Vogue overload. It is even equipped with a quaint little “model train” with cutouts of models traveling around a loop. All in all, the whole display is very unimpressive.

Notably missing from these displays was any sort of staff in any way related to Vogue magazine to help guests get the most from the exhibition. The display seems little more than an elaborate advertising display, the sole purpose being to sell more magazines. If you wander around Xintiandi a bit, you can find a few more of these not-too-remarkable displays.

Xintiandi has been host to a series of interesting events or exhibitions, but most ultimately are uninteresting excuses for marketing departments to pour their money into. Perhaps the people that frequent Xintiandi just have too much money and are prepared to pay for whatever mildly appealing thing is thrown in front of them? One way or another, it seems we can come to expect many more such presentations. If you are looking for some interesting things to go and see, and you have been to Xintiandi more than once, check out the slew of museum, landmarks, or shopping that Shanghai has to offer. Just look around, there are better things than advertisements to spend your time looking at.

It seems you can’t have a weekend these days without some brand doing some event somewhere. Big brands have the money to flaunt to throw a big bash, so other people, who also have excess cash can throw it at buying the brand. The bottom line is generally these parties have better DJs, VJs, performers, decoration and everything. Is the experience better? Things that are “branded” have money behind them, so you can generally expect better things. Put an ad on something, it gets more money so it can be better. Simplicity.

Then you have the party brands, Resistance Asia, Antidote, Rennaissance and the like. They focus on making the party itself a brand name. These parties are driven by teams of elite DJs encompassing a general theme for the party.

So which is better? I would say they are one in the same. Branded parties have the money to get the top DJs and themes, but party brands focus exclusivley on the DJs and themes, so it is just a matter of your personal preference. Either way, you can expect to party all night long.

Here are some pics from a recent Hennessy party on their “This is Me Tour”. They brought in the amazing live act Spirit Catcher, as well as renowned DJs Jef K and Sasse who ripped up the tracks like there was no tomorrow. Also, the VJ team factoid mesmerized the crowd with their mind warping visuals.

It seems these days, you can’t go somewhere and not see a fashion show. In Shanghai these days, no event is complete without it’s very own fashion show. Elite bar has taken this to the exteme apparently giving you a fashion show every day! I was recently at the Elite Bar opening, where they had not one, not two, but three completely separate fashion shows! There can’t be that many different show can there? Well apparently not, as you take a look, I saw the same show twice over the span of a couple of days:

Here is a model from the Elite Bar VIP Opening

Is this the same model with the same clothes, 2 days later at the Bund 18 party?

The shows seemed to have completely different choreographers, but they are the same models, with the same clothes. Though the Elite Bar show had a well known choreographer, I preferred the Bund 18 show. It is also fun to see how many times I can see the same model in the same clothes different times.

Though, these shows are really not as easy as they appear. For any show, it is choreographed just as any other show would be. It takes effort to put on a good fashion show. The show has to be rehearsed beforehand, as timings are very crucial in a time like this. You don’t want a gaffe like models running into each other because there are too many on the runway, or having people come out on the wrong musical cue. Perhaps not as difficult as a dancing show, but a good coreographer can turn models walking around into a beautiful show.

For instance, at the Elite Bar show, we saw a man and a woman, first walk out, then notice each other. They met, looked at leach other longingly, then walked off together. As they left, bubble machines spurting white bubbles showered over the runway, giving the impression of falling snow in the spotlights. It is always good when they turn it into something a bit more entertaining like that.

At all these shows, it is always amusing to watch the photographers scramble to get about 50 pictures of every model at the end of the runway.The models “run the gauntlet”, as they enter the end of the runway; the den of the photographers, are attacked by countless bursts of flash like a lightning show. Now you know why models like to wear dark glasses!

While amusing, Shanghai’s fashion shows seem to still lack the professionalism you see with international fashion shows. They make up for this by adding fancy choreography and lighting, which, while interesting and visually appealing, still does not make it feel like a real fashion show, at least to me.

Here are some more photos for your viewing pleasure:

Elite Bar VIP opening

Bund 18 Luxury Goods Event

If you were lucky enough to get tickets to the apparently sold out ballet performance “Sigh of Love“, (Chinese title 花样年华) you got to see something quite unique.

The Shanghai Ballet, under the guidance of French choreographer Bertrand d’At with Claude Agrafeil created what I would call a “Ballet Art Play”. It is not quite ballet, not quite a musical, but whatever it was, it was beautiful. From the audience’s perspective you see a series of heartfelt dancing scenes, which seem a bit discombobulated, only in a sense that it might be hard to understand the story. Though, the dancing scenes are very admirably performed by the dancers that really give you a sense of deep emotion behind every move.

As with most artistic professions, those who do it, do it for the love of the art. The dancers, as far as my conversations, all chose to do dancing as a career, not because they nothing else, but because they really had a passion for it. Having a job that is your passion is really something we all look for in life. Though, it is not all roses, as most of the dancers have been dancing for about 9 years or more. As you might guess, some of them have lost a certain amount of enthusiasm for their vocation. This, though, does not seem to lessen the seriousness with which they take their job.

Overall, they are performers doing what they want to do. Their salaries are not what you might expect for people in a highly specialized profession such as ballet dancing, but they don’t seem to mind too much, and it is still more than your typical Chinese salary.

If you missed their performance this time, be sure to catch it next time when they are on stage in October.

Here are some of photos of the production: