French luxury house Dior has opened its newly designed flagship store in China, in Shanghai’s luxury shopping mall Plaza 66, after eight months of renovations.
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Dubbed ‘China’s 30 Montaigne’, the new Dior Shanghai store serves as the largest retail store in the LVMH-owned brand’s retail network in China.
Spanning four floors, the 1,796-square-metres store stocks Dior’s full range of women’s and men’s ready-to-wear collections, jewelry and watches, as well as the brand’s fragrance and luxury homeware products.
Designed by Japanese architecture firm Kengo Kuma & Associates, both the facade of the store and inside are designed with ivory pleats that riff on the shapes of a Dior haute couture dress.
The first floor offers the latest collections from Dior’s women’s ready-to-wear and accessories lines, punctuated by a grand marble staircase that features paintings by the Chinese artist Hong Hao, and wraps around a suspended petal installation, created by Studio Sawada Design.
On the second floor, visitors will find a selection of fragrances, items from the Dior cruise 2024 collection, and a wall of limited-edition Dior Lady Art handbags. A private salon for VIP shoppers, is alos located on this level, behind a pair of sliding doors.
Upstairs on the third floor, visitors can shop homewares alongside a corridor displaying handbags in exotic skins, before arriving in a room featuring Dior’s high jewelry collection.
Finally, on the basement level, Dior men’s collections can be shopped in a lounge-like salon created by creative director of the Parisian house’s men’s collections, Kim Jones.
In its most recent trading update, parent company LVMH reported organic sales inched forward just 1 percent for the three months ending September 30, to EUR 19.96 billion (USD 21.17 billion).
While organic revenues in Asia excluding Japan were up 11 percent in the third quarter, figures reflected a slowdown from the 34 percent jump in the prior three months, reflecting a more challenging comparison basis and a recovery in Chinese tourism outside of Asia, said LVMH last month.