Fendi and Lagerfeld on the Great Wall of China

Taking luxury — and event marketing — to an audacious new summit, Fendi and Karl Lagerfeld staged a sunset fashion show atop the Great Wall of China, last Friday.

"I think it's the first fashion show visible from the moon," Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, joked a few hours before 500 guests climbed steep stone steps to witness Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini-Fendi stroll down the 2,000-year-old structure to a rousing ovation. "It's a big sign that China is the place where things are happening today."

Eighty eight models walked a runway 88 meters long in an expanded version of Fendi's spring-summer collection.

The collection featured clothes based on a circle motif that is a Chinese symbol of happiness, and the relaunch of its iconic Baguette bag.

Although countless fashion shows and other trade events have been staged at the foot of the Great Wall, Burke said it's the first time a fashion show has been staged on top of it.

The fashion show was followed by an open-air dinner and party at The Village at SanLiTun, a high-tech, spanking new shopping complex in downtown Beijing emblematic of China's speed-of-light pace of change and futuristic optimism. Acrobats suspended from ropes twirled on the face of a five-story building, and a Chinese dancer unfurled the long silk sleeves of her dazzling pink kimono. DJ sets by Japanese streetwear king Nigo and actress Asia Argento kept the party pumping long past midnight.

Fendi is enjoying rapid annual growth in China of "between 50 and 100 percent, the brand already operates 10 stores in China, including two in Beijing, and plans to add one additional unit per year in the giant nation to feed demand. At present, China ranks third among Asian markets for Fendi, after Hong Kong and South Korea.

As for global clientele, Chinese consumers rank fourth, after Italians, Americans and Japanese.