By Rita Ma (City Weekend)
Updated: 2007-06-11 09:58

Joyce has put the joy back in Shanghai.s high fashion circles. The multi-label designer boutique from Hong Kong has opened its first store on the mainland in Shanghai’s Plaza 66, with a fashion-fuelled bash graced by brand founder Joyce Ma herself, along with her daughter Adrienne, Yohji Yamamoto and Ann Demeulemeeste.

Thirty-six years after Ma's small boutique at the Mandarin Hotel first flickered onto the fashion radar, the new 8,000 square foot flagship store in Shanghai showcases collections by international heavyweights including Balenciaga, John Galliano, YSL, Oscar de la Renta, Ann Demeulemeeste, Comme des Garcons, Viktor and Rolf, Y's, Y-3, Undercover, Rick Owens, Number Nine and Valentino Red. It's located in the same luxury mall where Joyce opened mono-brand stores for Jil Sander and Anna Sui last year.

But it's more than just the clothes that get the designer treatment. Interior designer Gert Voorjans, who created all Dries Van Noten boutiques worldwide, along with artist Michele Oka Doner, has designed a classy retail space, the highlight of which is Doner's gilded dome at the center of the women's designer ready-to-wear salon. The dome evokes the filigree of a beehive, a splendid echo to the main entrance featuring a gold-leaf scrim and pair of cast bronze doors.

At the entrance, a sizeable area is dedicated to women's shoes, bags and accessories, from the likes of Manolo Blahnik, Christian Louboutin and Nancy Gonzalez. A procession of rooms and anterooms lead to the women's designer salon, in which all styles and brands form an elegant integration-from Comme des Garcons' trendy rags symbolizing the collapse of Japan's new age stylings, to Ann Demeulemeeste's sophisticated collection of black and white silk skirts and Galliano's death-head t-shirt.

At the other end of the store, with its own entrance, is an exclusive men's area, handsomely designed with a huge "checkered box" light box hanging from the ceiling, and decorated with a selection of stunning photographs by Flemish photographer Wouter Deruytter. Collections from Balenciaga, Fendi, John Galliano, YSL, Y's and Y-3 are presented in a space that boasts a "nice mixing and modern design", according to Yohji Yamamoto. The Japanese designer, wearing a dark Zhongshan suit, seemed especially pleased with the Joyce display of his Y-3 shoes, commenting: "You know, I always thought I should have my men's shoes displayed like this."

Joyce
Location: 2/F, Plaza 66, 1266 Nanjing Xi Lu
Tel: 021-62790910