Uniqlo to open Beijing's first Global Flagship concept store next month

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 21, 2021

Fast Retailing’s giant Uniqlo brand said its Beijing Sanlitun Global Flagship will open in China’s capital city on November 6. It’s only the third of its Global Flagship format on China’s mainland and its very first in Beijing.

The company said the new store “will engage with Chinese traditions and society, incorporating technology, art, culture, creativity, and sustainability to create China's first in-store curated LifeWear experience”. 

It clearly sees this as a huge deal and will feature a preview of the new store at the China International Import Expo (CIIE) 2021, taking place in Shanghai from November 5 to 10.

The company has been in China for nearly 20 years but founder and company chief Tadashi Yanai described the latest opening as “an important step in our vision to become a truly global digital consumer retailing company”.

We’re told the new store will provide customers with “inventive and unique shopping experiences through installations conveying the functionality of representative Uniqlo products, art displays, and Mainland China's first Uniqlo Flower, which offers fresh flowers and potted plants as another way to brighten up the lives of everyone”.

As an extension of the retailer’s Miao Embroidery Project (a sustainability initiative created to preserve the traditional embroidery techniques of the Miao people “that helps ensure important cultural traditions are not lost”), a huge Miao embroidery titled Life and Growth in Nature will be showcased for the first time at the store. 

The store also features Beijing's first special UT floor, where a range of popular global content expresses “the power of pop culture and creativity through T-shirts and other items”. There’s also Beijing's first UTme! customisation workshop, where customers can design their own UT using thousands of specially designed options, including Chinese-style Universal Studios and Disney motifs, and Chinese-calligraphy-themed patterns.

And to mark the launch, the company will debut New Culture Style, the first UT collection created in collaboration with Chinese artist Lao Shu, who specialises in depicting contemporary life with ink painting. 

Uniqlo opened its first store in China in September 2002, and currently the company is operating nearly 850 retail locations throughout the mainland.