The office I work in in Paris is about two doors down from the main Louis Vuitton shop. When I arrived this morning (a little later than normal), I noticed there was a bit of a crowd on the pavement outside. For a moment I wondered if there was something going on in the window (like the human statues they used occasionally to have in Singapore), but just as I got to the door of my office, the doors opened and people filed inside.

I've seen queues outside the post office on giro day, and I've seen people waiting for the supermarket to open. But queueing to get into a luxury goods shop?

The Louis Vuitton shop here is quite an interesting place, actually. I've never been in, but its customers appear to be about 80% South East Asian and Japanese. Apparently they'll only let you buy two items at a time, and it's not uncommon for passers-by to be offered money to go into the shop and buy stuff on people's behalf.

I really don't get Louis Vuitton, because it always seems to me to have more than a hint of the emperor's new clothes about it. It seems that there are people who will give their right arm for LV stuff, but for what?

Overpriced, shit-brown luggage. That's what.

I go past this shop every couple of days, and there isn't a single thing I've ever seen in the window that has ever struck me as being nice. And why does something that's so expensive look so cheap?

It beats the hell out of me, that's for sure.