Jim Thompson unveils dazzling vision

JIM THOMPSON’S flagship store at Siam Paragon has reopened following a facelift that underlines the company’s ambition to become Southeast Asia’s first global luxury brand. 
The sophisticated surroundings testify to its recognition of wider acceptance of what “luxury” means today, bringing Jim Thompson’s rich heritage forward to give it a resolutely contemporary style. 
A major challenge for Jim Thompson is to heighten its positioning for future competitiveness and to articulate its identity in the global scene of luxury brands.

The Jim Thompson flagship store at Siam Paragon has been given a sophisticated facelift, a refined interior pooling with garden and retail space.

“To start off this endeavour, the focus of attention has been team-building, to reinforce our brand,” says group chief executive Gerald Mazzalovo. 
“For instance, our design-and-development team of leading Thai and foreign designers has rationalised merchandising by introducing a seasonal logic, along with more complete men’s and women’s ready-to-wear collections and the introduction of new product lines, including leather handbags, silk and canvas handbags, neckties and scarves.”
The new concept at the Siam Paragon store will be applied to future ventures in London, Paris, Singapore, New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai, an an e-commerce site will be in operation soon.

The men’s ready-to-wear collection

Inspired by Jim Thompson House, well known for its unique meeting of architecture, refined interiors and tropical garden, the store seeks the same harmony between garden and domestic space and between exoticism and intimacy. 
The physical space plays with a harmonious contrast between the atmosphere of a garden and the alcoves distributed all around the shop to accommodate the ready-to-wear and home furnishings. 
The garden simulates the rich, mysterious, enveloping, noble, powerful, and fertile atmosphere of tropical nature. The iridescent, deep-green silk curtains transcend space. Green has been allied with brown and black to create the natural colours of Jim Thompson. 
From the garden, where the products are presented as a concert of colours thanks to the richness of the silk and the prints, one can explore the alcoves and their domestic atmosphere, which has been created with precious refined notes and decorative details borrowed from Thai culture.
Dialogues such as those between West and East, culture and nature, domesticity and wildness, the past and present and darkness and colours are omnipresent in the creative process, because they come directly from its identity and continuously accompany its history.

Home furnishing abound

“These dialectics determine the physical environment of the brand and the design of the products,” |says creative director Jean-Christophe Vilain. “We must add the substance to it, because Jim Thompson is really a brand of |substance, obviously thanks to silk, and also thanks to the strong presence of tropical nature in the creative sourcing. 
“Culture – the wealth and diversity of Southeast Asian cultures, an inexhaustible source of inspiration – and substance, give the brand its natural dimension, its legitimate vocation to be a true luxury brand and to radiate within and outside of Thailand.

The women’s ready-to-wear collection

“It’s a long story, which constitutes the guiding thread in the permanent elaboration of the style and the quest for continuity. It is silk, combined with the richness of patterns and colours, which constantly interrogates and characterises the design of products and their vitality.”
In addition to home furnishings, Jim Thompson aims to play a key role in the food-and-beverage trade by opening a luxurious Thai-food restaurant in downtown Bangkok in the first quarter of next year.

PAST MEETS THE PRESENT
The Jim Thompson flagship store at Siam Paragon is open daily from 10am to 9pm. 
Call (02) 129 4450 or visit www.JimThompson.com or the “JimThompsonThailand” 
Facebook page.