has partial or complete ownership of Siam Paragon, Siam Discovery and Iconsiam, but Siam Center particularly stands out for its platforming of emerging Thai fashion brands, its unique, customised storefronts and layouts, and its exclusivity rule, which requires retailers with multiple stores to offer a fixed percentage of merchandise that is unique to its Siam Center branch. This is no plain vanilla mall, and it keeps on adding fresh retail content that features upstart local designers along with a curated selection of global lifestyle brands. The latest additions to the mall keep it on the leading edge. Maison Keeps This Thai lifestyle apparel brand targeting young adults and kids had a soft opening for its flagship on the first floor on September 4. The brand first started as an officewear brand simply called “Keeps” in 2017, but the pandemic brought with it the mass work-from-home trend and the brand needed to pivot to stay alive, thus the merchandise transformation and the name change as it expanded its product range and target market and morphed into “Maison Keeps”. Although Siam Center is not its first store, it is easily the biggest and marks a big milestone in elevating the brand’s profile. Maison Keeps does not go in for cheap throwaway clothing like the US$10 pieces that Thai teens like to buy on TikTok: as the brand name suggests, these clothes are made to last and come at a price point more like, say, Uniqlo, which also prides itself on offering fashion basics that are more timeless and durable, rather than running after every trend like a personal injury lawyer chasing an ambulance. Kantima House, by Kantima Salon Kantima House, which opened on the first floor of the centre on August 17, is the latest concept by Kantima Salon. Kantima House is a nail salon that is decked out like the interior of a home – and a very funkily furnished home at that – meant to be your friend’s home where you coincidentally also have your nails done. On the rear wall is the perfect catchline: “Life is not perfect, but your nails can be.” The eye-popping aesthetic of Kantima House is consistent with the nail art of the concept’s creator, Grace Kantima Banjobdee, a local designer and graduate of the Fine Arts faculty at nearby Chulalongkorn University. Her attention-grabbing nail art was originally contained in an Instagram portfolio, but the exposure in Siam Center, though not her first physical storefront, provides the jumping-off point to become a much more high-profile brand. To ensure efficient utilisation of nail technicians, the salon encourages advance reservations on Line or Instagram, rather than walk-ins. 3rd Sense Also on the first floor, but up against the escalator railing, is local fragrance brand 3rd Sense, which opened on August 26 and is the brand’s first physical location. Thai mall owners are expert at managing small spaces and collaborating with the designer brands to turn them into visual feasts, and 3rd Sense is a beautiful example. 3rd Sense bills itself as a spiritual fragrance brand whose scents tie into four separate energy pathways. Mounted above the fragrance collections are four face paintings that are intended to represent each of these four energy paths: health, love, prosperity and power. The paintings are the work of local artist Juart Woraset. So if you wake up in the morning and have one of those goals in your sights, 3rd Sense has a fragrance for you. Subdued Not as recently opened as the other three, having launched in July, the Italian Gen Z female fashion brand Subdued now has its first store in Thailand on the ground floor of the centre. Unlike Maison Keeps, Subdued is a fast-fashion brand that monitors and chases social media aesthetics, but offers higher quality than its peers and attaches a higher price tag to go with it. Time and Treasures at Central Chidlom Siam Center is not the only retail project on the Rama 1 Road–Ploenchit Road strip that just keeps on getting better. Just over a kilometre to the east is the revamped department store Central Chidlom, which is holding a spectacular pop-up event featuring high-end and limited-edition watches, called Time and Treasures, that runs from September 2 until October 11. Even if you are not in the market for a US$15,000 Titoni Initial Edition watch, it is a dazzling horological display. Bangkok keeps rising in the retail pecking order Each of Asia’s shopping and entertainment destinations – Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Dubai – has its own strengths, weaknesses and specialities, but Bangkok is unusual in terms of the sheer variety of shopping environments, brand choices, price points and, perhaps above all, its penchant for incubating local brands and supporting local designers. While the latter is one of Siam Center’s particular strengths, it is only one of a number of high-profile malls in town that acts as a conduit for up-and-coming Thai designers. Shopping destinations have often been judged according to the number of global brands they attract, but now it is much more about capturing uniqueness rather than just offering what is available everywhere else. By tying merchandise in with local culture and creativity, brands are able to give both domestic consumers and tourists something they just can’t get back home. And Bangkok, above other shopping capitals, is doing it better than its peers. Further reading: How is Central Retail reshaping its sprawling retail empire?