Sephora @ Ion Orchard

According to Urban in the Straits Times today, the upcoming Sephora flagship store in Ion Orchard will be 15,000 square feet and the largest store in Asia as well as the second largest in the world after the Champs Elysees store in Paris.

And guess what new brands they are introducing? Smashbox, Burt's Bees, Skeen+ (French skincare brand for men) and Sakura Libote (Japanese skincare brand with hot spring minerals from Mt Fuji).

It's the second largest Sephora store in the world and that was the best that they could come up with? What a (tragic) joke! There were some rumours in Cozycot that NARS will also be stocked. If so, that would certainly be good but I just think Sephora is wasting a big fancy store if there aren't more new makeup brands like Urban Decay, Tarte, Josie Maran, Cargo, Fresh, TheBalm etc. Perhaps it's these brands that don't want to venture overseas under Sephora and hence not Sephora's fault exactly. Still, it's quite a disappointment.

Kiehl's, Shu Uemura and Korres will also be opening stand-alone stores in Ion. It's good to see Korres making a comeback to Singapore after an absence of a few years. Hopefully it will have the full makeup range as well as the skincare.

Here are some pics of Shu Uemura's sleek new flagship store in Omotesando Hills in Tokyo.