Erika Kinetz for The New York TimesNew York Times
By ERIKA KINETZ
February 3, 2008
To thrive in the tropics you need cotton.
This is the delight of the Bliss boutique: fabric. Not only does Bliss have clothes you can actually wear in the middle of the day — cascading petal-weight skirts, slouchy linen trousers, cool pink gingham blouses — it is piled high with stunning cottons, silks and linens from across Asia. These are sewn into clothes, pillows, quilts and cute little bags you can bring home to your friends.
Cassandra McMillan, 37, opened Bliss in 1996. Today, the shop, which added a spa four years ago, is at the heart of Phnom Penh’s growing expatriate life on Street 240, where you can also find a new chocolate shop, a wine store and a bar run by two former New Yorkers.
Bliss is a fine, neo-colonial sort of place, housed in a century-old villa that used to belong to a Chinese-Khmer merchant. Today, it has an admirably worn wooden staircase, small tile elephants, rose petals strewn languidly about and a plunge pool surrounded by frangipani trees.
The Bliss spa also gives what just could be the best bikini wax in town — an important consideration for those long afternoons by the pool, coconut in hand — thanks in large part to the quality of the wax, which, like Ms. McMillan herself, comes from Australia.
Ms. McMillan, whose mother is a professional quilter, likes to blend. There are chartreuse paisleys from Australia; ravishing Indian bridal quilts hand-stitched from antique saris; silvery silks from Cambodia, Korea and China; and bright geometric floral prints from Japan.
“A lot of these are one-offs,” she said. “Once it’s gone, that’s it.”
The prices, cited in dollars as is common in Cambodia, are fairly ridiculous by the country’s standards — some of those fat pillows cost $72, more than many garment factory workers make in a month — but this is all part of the grand, gin-fueled illusion of expatriate life.
One must also pay to escape the tyranny of Asian sizes. Go to a Cambodian dress shop and try to tug those Size 4 zippers over your ribs and you’ll be told: “But sorry, ma’am, it’s a big size already.” Go to Bliss and you’ll be right back home again, mercifully, in a size small. That’s worth at least one gin and tonic, isn’t it?
Bliss, 29 Street 240, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; (855-23) 215-754
By ERIKA KINETZ
February 3, 2008
To thrive in the tropics you need cotton.
This is the delight of the Bliss boutique: fabric. Not only does Bliss have clothes you can actually wear in the middle of the day — cascading petal-weight skirts, slouchy linen trousers, cool pink gingham blouses — it is piled high with stunning cottons, silks and linens from across Asia. These are sewn into clothes, pillows, quilts and cute little bags you can bring home to your friends.
Cassandra McMillan, 37, opened Bliss in 1996. Today, the shop, which added a spa four years ago, is at the heart of Phnom Penh’s growing expatriate life on Street 240, where you can also find a new chocolate shop, a wine store and a bar run by two former New Yorkers.
Bliss is a fine, neo-colonial sort of place, housed in a century-old villa that used to belong to a Chinese-Khmer merchant. Today, it has an admirably worn wooden staircase, small tile elephants, rose petals strewn languidly about and a plunge pool surrounded by frangipani trees.
The Bliss spa also gives what just could be the best bikini wax in town — an important consideration for those long afternoons by the pool, coconut in hand — thanks in large part to the quality of the wax, which, like Ms. McMillan herself, comes from Australia.
Ms. McMillan, whose mother is a professional quilter, likes to blend. There are chartreuse paisleys from Australia; ravishing Indian bridal quilts hand-stitched from antique saris; silvery silks from Cambodia, Korea and China; and bright geometric floral prints from Japan.
“A lot of these are one-offs,” she said. “Once it’s gone, that’s it.”
The prices, cited in dollars as is common in Cambodia, are fairly ridiculous by the country’s standards — some of those fat pillows cost $72, more than many garment factory workers make in a month — but this is all part of the grand, gin-fueled illusion of expatriate life.
One must also pay to escape the tyranny of Asian sizes. Go to a Cambodian dress shop and try to tug those Size 4 zippers over your ribs and you’ll be told: “But sorry, ma’am, it’s a big size already.” Go to Bliss and you’ll be right back home again, mercifully, in a size small. That’s worth at least one gin and tonic, isn’t it?
Bliss, 29 Street 240, Phnom Penh, Cambodia; (855-23) 215-754
