Naturally from time to time staff have been known to glance out the window and admire young ladies frolicking in the pool or sun-bathing in their bikinis. But we do try to be discreet. We don't want to undermine the professional and inclusive working environment that we all strive to maintain out of respect for our female colleagues.
Well, we needn't have bothered. In the first week of August a legendary troop of male models took up residence in the 'W' and spent most of the week playing, posing and preening by the pool. These were the famous Abercoombie models who promote the brand by attending store openings and driving around in open-topped busses wearing as little of their sponsors clothing as possible. They had been flown in to Hong Kong to open the new flagship store.
My female collegaues leered and ogled shamelessly at these boys all week. (I took a great photo of this but they made me delete it!). There was running commentary of the pool activity and much discussion of 6-packs, reconnaissance visits to the W hotel bars, and the best vantage points at the store-opening.
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| A passerby has her picture taken with Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) models at a store in Knightsbridge, a Singapore shopping mall. Photographer: Simin Wang/AFP/Getty Images |
This photo below shows the boys lining up for a photo-shoot.
And this is the result which was published the next day.
In the top right corner is the ICC, and if you could zoom in enough you could (theoretically) see my colleagues with their tongues hanging out.
According to Bloomberg the Hong Kong flagship store generated more than $1 million in sales in its first five days. But in America the brand's performance has become somewhat, er, flacid.
