The buzzy new movie “Crazy Rich Asians” starts off in New York City, but it’s not until the characters fly to Singapore that the scenes of true opulence begin.
In reality, there’s no need for NYC’s crazy rich Asians to fly away for over-the-top thrills and world-class consumerism.
Just ask fashion blogger Ezra William. Skittering from a Fashion Week after-party at The Pierre to shopping jaunts at Balenciaga to fancy meals at the Polo Club, Indonesian-born William has found his place in New York. So much so that he channels not one, but three different “Sex and the City” characters.
“Charlotte and Carrie are my main ones,” he told The Post. “But with a few drinks I can become Samantha.”
William and his French bulldog, Charlie, occupy a four story town house in the West Village which is loaded with a shoe and handbag collection worth some $740,000.
“Fashion is my passion,” said the currently single William, who counts Indochine, the Standard Hotel, Baby Grand and The Blond as his haunts of choice. “I express myself with fashion . . . I love sparkle and can’t wear it in Indonesia, which is much more conservative than New York.”
The New York University grad admits that his real-estate mogul father would be “mortified” at his conspicuous consumption.
William’s 77,000 Instagram followers, however, do not seem to mind. They thrill to his poses in pearls and velvet and leather. Shopping is so important to him that he has swapped psychotherapy for retail therapy.
“I asked [a therapist] for medication and they wouldn’t even give it to me,” he said. “[Then] I wondered why I should spend money on therapy when I can spend it on [clothing]. I love going to Dior and Bergdorf’s. Bergdorf’s has everything: All the brands and a café you can go to when you get tired.”
Besides dropping mega-chunks of change at ritzy stores, NYC’s crazy rich Asians are also making names for themselves on the cultural scene. Wendy Yu, 28, a Mainland Chinese door (yes, doors) heiress-turned-investor, donated so much to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute that the Curator in Charge position was named for her in March.
While the Korean-owned Mission nightclub on 28th Street is the new Asian hot spot, those with enough money eschew such places for a higher level of decadence.
“Super-rich Asians don’t bother going to clubs,” said an insider. “The best parties are private parties in private homes with all the things you could possibly want there. King crab gets flown in from Alaska and there will be 50 body-painted girls. It’ll cost six figures to put on.”
They’re also snapping up trophy properties.
In April, Karen Lo — the 47-year-old Hong Kong-born billionaire and scion of the international Vitasoy soybean-drink empire — snagged a 5,400-square-foot duplex penthouse at 15 Central Park West for $50 million. Previously owned by Sting, the home features a walk-in sauna and a fireplace designed to evoke the Fibonacci spiral (based on a numerical sequence revealed in 1202).
‘Coming from a country that mints a new billionaire every five days, our idea of rich is a few billion’
Luxury real-estate broker Dolly Lenz recalled a Chinese couple looking to purchase a 1,450-square-foot, two-bedroom apartment on the West Side near Columbus Circle.
“It was in a particular building that happened to be very wide and very luxurious,” she said. “Then they started crunching numbers — and wound up buying the entire floor,” some 13,000 square feet in 11 newly constructed apartments at a cost that exceeded $20 million. “Western buyers never do that. They buy specific properties for specific purposes. Asians always have their investment hats on.”
One Shanghai-born woman who has a residence on the Upper East Side as well as in Beverly Hills, London and her home city, made clear the difference between very rich and crazy rich.
“You might think that having a few hundred million dollars is rich, and it’s true that you can live a pretty nice life with that kind of money,” said the transplant, whose family earned a fortune via real estate in Mainland China and who asked not to be named. Coming from a country that mints a new billionaire every five days, she added, “Our idea of rich is a few billion.”
It also means not shopping like mortals.
“The normal rich Asians go to Tiffany, but the crazy rich Asians have jewelry coming to them,” said Robert Toshi Chan, majority owner of American Born Chinese Capital, which invests Chinese money in American real estate. “They get private jewelers to make them bespoke jewelry.”
The most outrageous piece he’s seen in the Big Apple?
“One gentleman of Chinese descent, who owns real estate in New York, spent $6 million on custom earrings with completely flawless type IIa diamonds, as big as peanut M&Ms, for his American mistress.”
When crazy rich Asians wed, it’s an excuse to go all out. Take the 2012 nuptials of Veronica Chou, 32, the daughter of Chinese textile magnate Silas Chou, and Russian entrepreneur Evgeny Klyucharev. The two-day-long celebration — where the bride wore a Michael Kors couture gown — welcomed 1,500 guests, including Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson, who were entertained by performers from Cirque du Soleil.
The Chous are, according to Harper’s Bazaar, “one of China’s most famous fashion families,” with Silas having been an early backer of Kors and Tommy Hilfiger. Veronica has been spotted at New York Fashion Week and is also the president of Iconix, a company that brings American fashion to Chinese retail. (In 2015, her younger sister Vivian acquired designer Thakoon Panichgul’s eponymous brand, though that deal later fell through.)
According to Harper’s Bazaar, clothes horse Veronica — who adores Alexander Wang and Balmain — once had a dress from Karl Lagerfeld’s Paris atelier stuck at customs: The box holding it was too large to fit into the SUV that had been sent to pick it up.
A more embarrassing snafu took place in March, after Veronica and Klyucharev alleged that their driver had stolen Veronica’s 6.29-carat diamond ring and sold it to a London dealer who then resold it to Manhattan diamond dealer Illuminex.
But Illuminex claimed that, based on the driver’s statements, the diamond was not stolen and that the couple had given it to the driver to sell — then committed fraud when they reported it stolen. Veronica and Klyucharey denied this. The jewel was returned to them but the case remains unresolved.
Veronica is not the only crazy rich Asian in NYC to land in hot water with the law.
Back in 2009, Jho Low became a Page Six fixture for his partying ways: logging five- and six-figure champagne bills at spots such as Avenue and Pink Elephant, partying with Leonardo Di Caprio and Usher and sending 23 bottles of Cristal to Lindsay Lohan at 1OAK.
The billionaire Malaysian financier also spent a then-unheard-of $100,000 per month for an apartment in the ritzy Park Imperial on West 56th Street.
“He was a young wiseguy, occupying the 64th floor and always trailed by an entourage comprised mostly of young women,” said Lenz, who — along with actor Daniel Craig and hip-hop mogul Sean Combs — was a neighbor.
But in 2016, Low, now 36, was among three people accused of embezzling more than $1 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign-wealth fund. Low himself is accused of laundering more than $400 million and using his allegedly ill-gotten gains to present big-time friends with out-sized gifts. For DiCaprio’s birthday in 2014, he reportedly gave the actor a $3.2 million Picasso artwork.
The US Justice Department alleges that Low was the brains behind the embezzlement. The Malaysian government seized his $250 million yacht and is seeking arrest.
“Apparently, he is now in Dubai — trying not to be seen after always being seen in New York,” said Lenz.
Meanwhile, Ezra William reigns as a poster boy for the glittery, high-fashion life of a crazy rich Asian who loves the limelight — and his priciest fashion possession.
“That would be an Hermès bag,” he said, revealing that the luxe accessory goes for $65,000. “It’s made of crocodile. Everybody has one.”
Additional reporting by Christian Gollayan
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