Hong Kong customs officers have arrested two men and confiscated more than 56,000 counterfeit products worth nearly HK$17 million (US$2.1 million) in a joint operation with mainland Chinese and Macau authorities. Inspector Terence Wong Tsz-kin of the Customs and Excise Department’s intellectual property transnational investigation division said on Friday that the three-week operation had determined the seized items were destined for overseas. “During the joint operation, Hong Kong customs seized more than 56,000 counterfeit products, which included smartphones, phone accessories, watches, handbags and shoes,” he said.

Where? Intermix is in uptown Manhattan, on swanky Madison Avenue, a shopper's paradise. It is near designer boutiques such as Chloe, Gucci and Juicy Couture, and hip department store Barneys New York. Who? Intermix was founded by Lebanon-born Khajak Keledjian, who was 19 and a student at New York University when he opened the first store, in 1993. Today, he is chief executive of the trendy chain, which he runs with his brother, Haro.

The “competition officers” – from Brussels, Poland and the Netherlands – were looking for evidence of financial help that Nuctech may have received from the Chinese government. In Brussels policy circles, Tuesday’s raids were about as dramatic as it gets, and the revelations – first reported by the South China Morning Post – sent shock waves through the EU. They suggest that the European Commission has moved to a new stage in cracking down on what it views as one of the biggest risk to the Eurozone economy: foreign subsidies from Beijing, which it believes are causing industrial overcapacity that could see Europe flooded with cheap Chinese imports.

Fashion is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to elephant patterned trousers. The so-called elephant pants are rarely worn by local Thais, but these light and breezy trousers can be found in abundance in tourist areas such as along the pubs and hostels of Bangkok’s Khaosan road, once made famous by the 2000 film The Beach starring Leonardo DiCaprio. There, they’re a phenomenon worn by a near majority of tourists during the day, when they are sold on the sides of the street for as little as 150 baht each (US$4.

Served with a 1920s twist, it focuses on the origins of art deco in France, the mutual exchange of influences with China, and the new style’s development in the East. This exchange with China resulted in a “East meets West” fusion, that became part of an acclaimed art de vivre, or art of living. “Art deco is a distinctive style,” says art historian Isabelle Frank, one of the show’s two chief curators.