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Last Updated: Sep 14th, 2008 - 02:45:41 |
To the untrained eye, the Au Bon Pain at J Avenue, a strip mall on Soi Thonglor in Bangkok, doesn't look like much. On a recent evening, a group of university students in jeans and studded belts were "studying" their textbooks and showing off their new cellphones. At another table, four office types were examining floor plans. A mother brought her children in for snacks. A young woman quietly smoked a cigarette.
It could have been any Au Bon Pain in any minimall in any city on the planet. But this wasn't just another fast-food franchise. This was, according to Krissanaphong Kiattisak, the epicenter of creativity in Bangkok.
And Kris, as everyone calls him, should know better than perhaps anyone in this city of 5.6 million people: He is the editor in chief of Wallpaper* Thailand, the new spinoff of the international design bible (and only the second foreign franchise, after Russia), and this cafe - a wide-open place that feeds the see-and-be-seen desires of hip residents - has become something of a second office to him and his staff.
"You can sit here all day and talk to photographers and stylists," said Mr. Krissanaphong, a former architect and interior designer whose response to the city's overwhelming heat that day was to wear a blue-and-gray striped sweater.
Just then, a group of young men with stylish black glasses sat down outside and waved through the plate-glass window at Mr. Krissanaphong and his creative director, Nontawat (Moo) Charoenchasri, and editorial coordinator, Chidlada (Louise) Chananon.
"We know everybody," Mr. Krissanaphong said, smiling.
These days in Bangkok, "everybody" is a significantly larger group than it once was. The people you meet at parties, clubs and cafes seem to be graphic designers, or architects, or fashion photographers, or producers of TV commercials and short films. (Or they give parties for those people.) What's more, their influence is starting to be felt far beyond the borders of Thailand.
Art films by the directors Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul are winning acclaim and awards at international festivals, while Tony Jaa, an action star, is being touted as "the next Jackie Chan" for his balletic stunts in films like "Ong Bak." Thai advertising is considered the most innovative in Asia, with the TV-commercial directors Suthon Petchsuwan and Thanonchai Sornsrivichai and the production company Phenomena in the top rankings of the 2005 Gunn Report, an industry guide that tracks advertising awards.
Architecture and interior design, too, have come a long way from the mid-90's, when a skyscraper that was built to look like - no joke - a white elephant was the most famous (or infamous) mark on Bangkok's skyline. Now a new, subtler generation of architects has come to the fore, and at least half a dozen Thai-language interior-design magazines can easily be found on newsstand shelves. (Not Wallpaper*, however. The first issue of the monthly sold out a few weeks after its September release.)
And aspiring decorators no longer have to import housewares from Italy or looted antiquities from Cambodian temples. Thai companies like Propaganda are establishing themselves as equals to Alessi, and their reliably whimsical products are finding a market through smaller New York shops like the Reed Space, on the Lower East Side.
But the heart of all this innovation remains Bangkok, and Soi Thonglor in particular. (Sois are the numbered alleys branching off Bangkok's main streets. Most are narrow, but some, like Thonglor, which is technically Sukhumvit Soi 55, are long and wide enough to be main streets themselves.) Leave J Avenue to explore Thonglor, and you'll be assaulted not by Bangkok traffic (improving - slowly - thanks to the SkyTrain and subway) but by innumerable design showrooms advertising such brands as Flos, Cappellini and Kartell.
At one end of Thonglor, you'll hit Sukhumvit Road, which is lined with Bangkok's most upmarket malls, and at the other you'll discover H1, a modest but sleek collection of businesses - an ice-cream parlor, two restaurants, a club, an art-book store and a furniture showroom - clustered around two relatively serene courtyards. In between these points are more shopping centers frequented by both expats and wealthy Thais, as well as hip pubs like Escudo and Red Bar and, down the labyrinth of alleyways that connect Soi Thonglor and Sukhumvit Road, some of Bangkok's most expensive residential real estate.
"A year ago, it was nothing but wedding shops, but now it's grown into a fashion extravaganza," says Joshua Phillips, a 23-year-old American with wild blond hair who runs the comprehensive shopping-and-night-life Web site BangkokRecorder.com. "Will it be a success? Yes. Because condos are ridiculously expensive, so Hi-So types" - high-society, that is - "are moving into the area. And where will they spend money?"
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