At the entrance of Taikoo Li Sanlitun, there stands a colorful irregular cube building. For more than ten years, this location has belonged to the Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo . Because it occupies the best and most conspicuous location in the Taikoo Li Sanlitun business district, Uniqlo is also known as the "door god".
In November last year, UNIQLO moved to the newly put into operation Taikoo Li West District and upgraded it to a global flagship store. As for the original location a few hundred meters away, it was covered with a curtain, like a "blind box" waiting to be opened, which attracts people's imagination.
Who will become the “new door god” of Taikoo Li Sanlitun? The answer is finally revealed. On August 4, South Korea’s high-end trendy eyewear brand Gentle Monster officially opened for business. This is also the brand’s largest single-brand eyewear flagship store in the world.
Gentle Monster is known as the "slash youth in the retail industry". It innovatively integrates art curation into offline retail spaces. Behind the image of each store is an independent theme and story. The unique space aesthetic concept satisfies consumers' pursuit of freshness again and again. So, what are the unique features of this new store? Next, follow Mr. Guan and walk into Gentle Monster’s new flagship store in Taikoo Li Sanlitun.
Image source: provided by the brand
01 Implementing the "art curatorial" future retail model
When you come to Taikoo Li Sanlitun, you will be greeted by Gentle Monster's new store image. The visual language of red and black and the huge LED portrait are very visually impactful and convey an obvious sense of the future. As the brand's largest flagship store in the world, the store covers an area of 1,330 square meters and spans three floors of commercial space. In terms of aesthetic expression,
’s flagship store takes “DATAIZED FUTURE” as its theme to express the fragmented and dislocated future that human beings will eventually face in the jump of different time and space dimensions. Giant installations of various shapes form a matrix with multimedia art works. In static reset and dynamic contrast, these bright colors and perverse materials are instantly solidified in multi-dimensional pulses across the three floors of the building.
While maintaining the overall conceptual consistency, each floor has its own aesthetic narrative chapter. The first-level space of
directly reflects the critical point when the time sequence is reset. Spherical objects traveling through digital time and space are randomly scattered, forming a geometric maze full of uncertainty.
In the second-floor space, a huge black robot sits cross-legged, with a rhinoceros beside him leaning over to whisper from time to time, making visitors feel as if they are in a frozen space. Stepping into the atrium, the black geometric parts are reorganized into biological forms, presenting a strange beauty.
On the farthest wall of the third floor, a huge ant is waiting and observing. The entire space can be imagined as a square ant nest.
In addition to design aesthetics, the flagship store is also full of surprises in terms of products and services.
According to reports, the store focuses on the "glasses" category and is the world's largest single-brand eyewear flagship store. It can provide twice as many styles as other stores. It will also be the first to release new models and the store with the most complete styles. In terms of product display, the first floor is for basic and classic sunglasses , and the second floor is for best-selling models co-branded with celebrities. There is an independent display space for co-branded products, and the display will be modified from time to time.
goes up to the third floor. This floor is mainly optical glasses , equipped with professional optometry area. At the same time, the independent service area on the third floor has set up the first offline maintenance space in North China region, providing free repair, maintenance and cleaning services.
02 Why Taikoo Li Sanlitun?
As Gentle Monster’s largest flagship store in the world, why did you choose Taikoo Li Sanlitun?
This is not difficult to understand. Gentle Monster has a close relationship with Taikoo Li Sanlitun. In 2016, GENTLE MONSTER entered the Chinese market, and Beijing became the "birthplace" of the brand and the Chinese market. The first store was located in Taikoo Li North District, Sanlitun.
As the first store in mainland China, Sanli Tuan's Taikoo Li North District store was unveiled with the theme of "SECERT NEIGHBORS". It presented the brand's "art curatorial" future retail model to Chinese consumers for the first time, and continued to innovate and upgrade the commercial space, remodeling the space three times in 2017, 2019 and 2021. In addition to its "historical origins",
's new location is not only large in area, which can meet the needs of brands to open large stores, but also has an excellent location, making it a natural billboard. The cooperation between the two is natural.
On the other hand, what cannot be ignored is that the Chinese market is becoming more and more attractive to fashion brands. China has become one of the most important markets for Gentle Monster.
As of now, according to official website statistics, Gentle Monster has a total of 64 directly operated stores around the world, of which 17 are in mainland China, accounting for nearly 30%. Other regions except South Korea only have 1-3 stores respectively.
At the end of 2019, Gentle Monster founder Jin Hanguo said in an interview with Chinese media that there are differences in the concerns of Eastern and Western consumers when buying sunglasses. Westerners’ motivations are more functional, and it will take at least two years to completely design this line for the West.
At the beginning of 2021, Gentle Monster UK Director Gary Bott revealed that due to the decline in overall customer flow and sales due to the epidemic, the brand will close all direct stores in the UK and Europe and focus on the franchise model, e-commerce and wholesale business. At the same time, he said that the operating model in the Asian market is still mainly direct sales.
It is not difficult to see that the brand's development focus is still focused on Asia. In the current market, the number of direct-operated stores in South Korea is twice that of mainland China. In comparison, the Chinese market still has great development potential. This time, the world's largest flagship store has landed in Taikoo Li Sanlitun, Beijing, which will further shorten the distance with local consumers and pave the way for the brand's further expansion in the Chinese market.
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