How staircases became the latest status symbol in Asian luxury retail
With space at a premium, stairs have become an unlikely way to express opulence for high-end fashion brands in Thailand.
Stairs might be a hassle in many places but in Asian cities, where most of us live in apartments, they are a sign of luxury. French brand Cartier has just opened a boutique in Bangkok’s Siam Paragon shopping mall and the two-storey shop, with its own internal staircase, is being billed as a first of its kind in Thailand.
Duplexes have become all the rage in high-end retail. To keep up with Cartier, other boutiques are now undertaking renovations. Physical shops are the most important sales channel in Thailand and European luxury houses require more room to pamper customers with special “experiences”: intimate dinners and that exclusive staircase to a higher level of service.
A similar shift is under way in Hong Kong, where the Landmark in Central is in the middle of a major remodelling job: its ceilings are being knocked through to build multistorey “maisons” for its wealthy tenants. Amid this scramble for stairs, one of the best retail spaces to open inside a luxury mall in 2025 is stepping in a different direction: rather than up, it’s going down. Friend Friend at the Emporium shopping mall, Siam Paragon’s closest rival, has commandeered two levels of the car park and made use of a car ramp to connect the floors, stocking designer furniture, homeware, kitchenware, hardware, house plants, magazines and vinyl records.
While luxury brands wrestle with being both exclusive and accessible – creating roped-off areas for top spenders and cheaper products for the mass market – Friend Friend is notable for using stairs to elevate an experience.
