Reporter | Zhou Fangying
Edit | Lou Shuqin
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The first flagship store of The fragrance brand Guanxia To Summer in Shanghai, "Guanxia Xianting", was officially opened recently. The location of the store is located at 111 Hunan Road, adjacent to popular landmarks Wukang Road and Anfu Road. However, compared with the bustle of the first two roads, Hunan Road, which is full of celebrity former residences and art spaces, has a sense of quiet and tranquility.
According to Guanxia, the two-storey Spanish old bungalow currently located has undergone more than 200 days of renovation. Guan Xia integrates his knowledge of oriental aesthetics into the restoration of old Shanghai architecture. This whole process of renovation also became the inspiration for Guan Xia to create new incense, which made Guan Xia's first literary perfume series.
Image source: Guan Xia
Founded in early 2019, Guanxia is also a domestic brand that started online. Based on the core concept of oriental culture and plant fragrant wood, Guanxia has gradually developed from aromatherapy products to perfume fragrances, body care and other categories.
Xianting is not the first offline space for Guan xia. In 2020, Guanxia opened its first offline store " Guanxia Living Room" in Sanlitun, Beijing. However, only 20 square meters of this 170 square meter space is used for displaying products, and the rest of the space carries the role of interactive activities such as leisure exchanges and exhibition forums.
The first flagship store in Shanghai is not the primary goal of retail, but more to reflect the brand concept and image shaping.
After a field visit to the interface fashion, it was found that a handwashing station was set up in the waiting area at the entrance of the leisure court, and hand sanitizer and hand cream were provided for consumers to use.
On the first floor of the garden, all the products of Guanxia are displayed so far. The whole fragrance area is divided into several major areas: home fragrance, oriental essence perfume, oriental philosophy perfume, and body washing. The internal construction of the entire space adopts the "frame view" and "borrowed scenery" commonly used in classical Chinese garden landscaping, and this perspective structure can make different spaces penetrate each other and have a sense of transparency.
The second floor of the garden was created as an Oriental way of life. Before the official opening, Guanxia held a five-day "idle bureau" activity here, including the TangGuozi Production Bureau, the Handmade Book Binding Bureau and other handicraft activities closely related to traditional Chinese culture. According to Guanxia, in the future, the second floor space will be used to hold more handicraft activities and art exhibitions related to oriental culture.
In addition, Guanxia has made part of the space on the second floor into a composition room to display the spice raw materials used in popular science products.
Guanxia has always been more cautious in the development of channels. It pays particular attention to the influence of channel expansion on its image expression.
Interface Fashion has reported that when Guanxia first ventured into offline channels to open a pop-up store in Lane Crawford, the brand only had WeChat Mini Programs as its own channel. Shen Liye, co-founder of Guanxia, once said in an interview with Fat Whale that compared with a broader e-commerce platform, WeChat Mini Programs are more able to carry the brand's requirements and pursuits for content expression.
It is worth noting that in September 2021, Guanxia also launched the first brand magazine "Kunlun KUNLUN", which held dialogues with a number of artists.
From the perspective of the pursuit of space experience by the two offline stores in Beijing and Shanghai, Guanxia will still focus on the establishment of the brand's high-end image. For high-end perfume brands, the experience of offline space is a great way to make the fragrance more concrete.
For example, another domestic high-end perfume brand, DOCUMENTS, opened an offline store in Shanghai at the beginning of its founding. The head of the Wenxian brand once said in an interview with Interface Fashion, "Taste is a very virtual and very subjective thing, and it needs to use a lot of other sensory experiences to make the taste more symbolic and three-dimensional." For a high-end perfume brand, a good offline experience is essential and crucial. ”
It can be seen that in addition to these high-end domestic brands, international brands have begun to further develop the perfume territory in China. For example, Estée Lauder Group's high-end perfume brand Fumar Perfume Publishing House and Kellian have also opened stores in China.
This also means that Guanxia will face more fierce market competition. After all, fragrance is also an important step for luxury brands as they expand into lifestyle categories. To some extent, it is a "luxury" that the public can reach the threshold.