Hamish Bowles Takes in the Art and Architecture of Beijing and Shanghai

It was Pierpaolo Piccioli’s magnificent Valentino haute couture collection, presented in Beijing’s Summer Palace and created especially for the occasion that took me back to China for the first time in too many years.

Breakfast at the Park Hyatt provided a spectacular misty view of the teeming, forbidding city as it stretches out into a seeming infinity on all sides. First stop was the temporary Valentino workroom—set up near the Sanlitun Valentino store that was to be unveiled later that afternoon—to meet with Pierpaolo and marvel at the couture miracles being fashioned by the house’s brilliant technical wizards.

At the elegant David Chipperfield–designed store, with its wall of plaster hanging like the folds in an angelic jersey dress and its sweep of smooth concrete spiral stairs, clients clad in couture ball gowns mingled with actresses and pop stars whose fans behind the velvet ropes held neon-light banners spelling their idols’ names.

The dinner that followed was held at the TRB Temple in the hutong of Shatan Beijie. In the Qing Dynasty temple courtyard, its complex of buildings bathed in red light, we were entertained by exquisitely dressed members of the Beijing Opera before being bidden inside the 600-year-old cinnabar-colored former temple to a magnificent candlelit dinner prepared by master chef Ignace Lecleir. I sat with Vogue China’s dynamic editor Angelica Cheung, the superbly couture-clad fashionista Lu Xing Yu, and music star Lay Zhang.

On the morrow I set off with fellow Valentino revelers to explore the Forbidden City and marvel anew at its epic scale and magnificence. Thence to the Summer Palace to swoon for both the Valentino couture extravaganza and the setting, which included a summer pavilion reflected in a carp pond fringed by willows: a vision from an ancient scroll painting. I raced home to write and file my copy, so sadly I missed Lay Zhang’s performance at a private party later that night, but snatched a couple hours’ sleep before heading out at dawn to the Great Wall at Huairou.

The early start was worth it as we managed to reach the Wall before the crowds, taking a ski lift that juddered all too slowly over the plunging valley below, turning my bones to jelly in the process. The hair-raising journey was worth it, of course: How could the legendary Wall, with its sweeping views over mountains and ravines, and a harmony of orange and yellow autumnal-leafed trees, fail to impress? The section that we visited dates from the 16th century—although the first constructions began in the 7th century B.C.—and the defensive barrier eventually extended to an astonishing 21,000 kilometers. Breathtaking.