By Mark South (Shanghai Star)
Updated: 2006-06-29 17:39

A few years ago there was a fashion for women's T-shirts with provocative titles stamped upon them.

You would regularly see girls with "Sex Kitten," "Man Eater" or even "Nymphomaniac" written across their chests, which really gave you something to ponder as they passed your tins of baked beans across the bar code reader in the supermarket.

What I discovered very quickly, and you will probably be as surprised as I was to find this out, was that often the T-shirts were lying.

"Party Chic" was to be found at home watching TV every night of the week and "Bunny Girl" was a very large lottery win and several years of intensive cosmetic surgery away from ever making it into the pages of Playboy.

Which only goes to show, as my old mum used to say: "If you have to advertise you are it, you are not it."

Which should bode ill for Glamour Bar on Guangdong Road.

If you were not aware of the bar's proven pedigree, you would be excused for avoiding it, or anywhere else with "glamour" in the title, especially in Shanghai, suggesting as it does stuttering pink neon lights, sticky floors and ageing hostesses.

Fortunately, if you roll up to Glamour Bar expecting this-and I am sure there are a few who do only to leave, repelled by the almost tangible air of sophistication-you will be startlingly disappointed.

From the opening party, when the place was crammed with Shanghai's bright and beautiful (and the odd reporter necking as much free champagne as he could), it was hard to tell exactly what the bar would look like on a normal evening, but I can fairly safely say that sticky floors and pink neon were not part of the brief.

Larger and airier than its predecessor upstairs, along with the huge rectangular bar in the centre of the room and a raised stage at one end, Glamour Bar now also boasts a balcony and clear views across the river.

Yes, the drinks are a bit pricey compared with the 100 yuan (US$12.5) all you can drink places elsewhere in town, but unlike some, Glamour Bar does not make any promises it cannot keep.

Glamour Bar
Location: 7/F, No. 20 Guangdonglu
Opening time: Daily 5:30pm-late
Tel: 021-63509988