Crazy Rich Couture

Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan travels to Paris to meet the Asian style icons who are shaking up the staid world of couture.

- Kevin Kwan

I was sitting on a minimalist white bench in the middle of a glowing white box pavilion that had been built amid splendour of the formal gardens surrounding the Musée Rodin in Paris.

This was the ethereal setting for the Dior haute couture fall/winter 2018 show, and as I sat there thinking I must be in heaven, a woman leaned into my face and imperiously demanded that I move. She wore canary diamonds the size of small lemons and a champagne-coloured cocktail dress, and she looked like she had spent at least four hours in her makeup artist’s chair. “You are in my seat! You need to move more to the left,” she implored. I told her as politely as I could that there was no possible way I could move another millimetre, as I was already practically in the lap of the friendly Australian woman next to me. But this lady standing over me, who I suddenly recognised as the wife of one of the richest men in Asia, wouldn’t take no for an answer. She had two planes, a dozen houses and her own private museum, I believe, and she wanted her seat. A flurry of attendants came to sort out the fracas, whereupon it was revealed that Madame had made a mistake after all. This was not her seat; she was actually in the row behind. Welcome to the land of haute couture, where even all the money in the world cannot buy you a front-row seat.