The shopping mall. You know: that place where the lighting is a bit too bright, the escalators are broken, and there’s a “food court” piled high with teenagers and empty trays.
Bangkok’s malls are… not like that. If the Mall of Berlin is a medium ranking church of capitalism, then the Siam Paragon is the Dom in Köln, centralwOrld (yes, that’s how it’s written) is the Sagrada Família, and ICONSIAM (yes, again) is the Vatican.
These are places where the wealthy come to spend and the curious come to take pictures and snark.
Bangkok is home to two of the top ten largest malls in the world – Central World at number six, Icon Siam at number four. Along the Sukhumvit BTS line where I’m staying, there are six within a six-station distance, all conveniently connected to those stations so one doesn’t even have to touch the ground or barely suffer the humidity outside. Three of them are so close together that they almost merge into one; you never have to step foot outside.
Icon Siam
Icon Siam is the newest kid on the block, opened in 2018 and toppling Central World’s crown as the largest mall in Thailand. It has something like 525,000 sqm of retail space. For comparison, Manchester’s Trafford Centre – third largest in the UK – is about a third of the size.
It has its own BTS spur line connecting it to the rest of the metro system, called – unironically, one assumes – the Gold Line. It’s not the most graceful way to approach, being a glorified airport train, a bit jumpy and lumpy and slow.
One could also approach from the river by boat, or from the road in one’s Mercedes, but truly the only acceptable arrival is by helicopter to the adjacent Millennium Hilton.
Entering this cathedral is a mind-boggling experience. It’s not just big; it’s ambitiously, blatantly, conspicuously big. And while I essentially dislike the whole idea of twelve floors of luxury stores and Michelin restaurants and lifestyle retail all being thrown in my face… well, they certainly know how to make it work.
The first thing that I saw: a triple-level store with a name I have never heard of, selling… well, hard to say. Two enormous sculptures of semi-naked men (by enormous I mean: 10x10x3m), and at the other end of the store, this:
No, I don’t know either. Sunglasses, I think.
Of course, literally every luxury brand you can name is here, and there’s a curious thing: those same brands are in every other mall too. Luxury is not about exclusivity here.
So at first I was considering making this a half-hour thing, yeah yeah GucciLouisMcQueenDiorLagerfeldHermesYadaYada but… since I’ve come all this way, let’s have a wander about because there has to be more than that. And there is… of course all the usual suspects: Uniqlo, Muji, H&M, Zara, Nike, Adidas, Apple, even JD-fucking-Sports is here. Numerous food outlets selling fancy cakes and less fancy pastries (which I would not have been surprised if Greggs was written above the door). Also, cars: BMW, Mini, Volvo, BYD.
In between: just so. much. stuff. Like, housewares, but for no house such as I’ve ever been to. The kind of items you exactly expect to see being sold in a place like this, but never expect anyone to actually buy.
And restaurants. At least six are Michelin-something’d.
There are more floors: a cinema, a gym, a concert venue, a gallery space. Outside, wide vistas over the Chao Phraya river.
And they really nailed that mall escalators thing: never allow a simple route up or down. Once inside, patrons must be guided past every shop possible just to ascend or descend. (Also: make the lifts slow and inaccessible).
Overall, sure, I was impressed. It was a lot less awful than it could have been. And I didn’t spend a single Baht, so I guess I win.
But I might have to go back for this:
