Top French brand reopens Beijing store

French brand Isabel Marant celebrated the re-opening of its flagship store in Beijing last Wednesday.

The 170-square meter boutique, in Sanlitun Taikoo Li South, offers a welcoming and immersive experience. The store's design draws inspiration from the 1960s French experimental movement, which emphasized self-expression, imagination, durability and experimentation. The facade, with bright yellow walls and floor-to-ceiling windows, ensures sunlight floods in.

Inside the store, warm-toned materials enhance the ambience creating an inviting, cozy and pleasant atmosphere.

In addition to its design, the store features several notable works of art and design pieces including a wall tapestry by Ewald Kr?ner, lamps by Isamu Noguchi and the iconic Terrazza De Sede sofa designed by Ubald Klug.

Founded by designer Isabel Marant in Paris in 1994, the French fashion house now has more than 85 stores worldwide including 16 in China. Beijing's new store displays Isabel Marant Mainline, a selection of Isabel Marant Etoile and Men and Isabel Marant Accessories.

After 30 years of development, Isabel Marant remains an icon of cool French style, drawing inspiration from all over the world to irreverently refresh the urban wardrobe. Embodying a new vision of cool luxury, the brand has a unique positioning, standing at the intersection between traditional French luxury houses and high-end ready-to-wear brands.

"Rejecting ostentation and materialism, Isabel Marant offers a relaxed and effortless take on luxury clothing and accessories for men and women, promoting a positive attitude geared towards genuine enjoyment and self-fulfillment," said CEO Anouck Duranteau-Loeper.

She told China Daily that Sanlitun Beijing has always been a very important location as it embodies a coll environment. When they updated the flagship store, they decided to do a new concept.

"We've been working a lot with Isabel on redefining what would be exactly the architecture of her style. We worked the floor, the furniture, the lighting and everything. So we feel it's quite interesting. We feel that here. It's a good match between our brand and the clientele and the environment.

"I think maybe as European, we've always preferred an open air type of shopping experience. But I think also the mix of brands makes it a bit less formal, a bit more cool.

"The facade is totally yellow, in a new material. Isabel loves the sun, and for us yellow is the color of the sun, of the energy. And we felt it was quite relevant to the brand to have that vibrant facade."

Duranteau-Loeper is satisfied with the brand's performance in China. She said compared to the size of the market, the brand is still super small but is progressing.

"We have no Big Bang plan and we just want to grow the business steadily."

The CEO has visited China more than 20 times since she joined the brand in 2016. Every time she visits China she sees more and more publicity and greater visibility of the brand.

"We feel that it matches quite well, the Chinese attitude, that mix between femininity and boyishness and then cool but a bit formal. I think it's quite interesting. We always see Isabel as a brand about tension. It's girly, it's femininity, but we twisted with the boyish thing, or it's a bit gypsy, but then you have something very sophisticated next to it," said she.

"Maybe because of that, it was a bit more complicated in the beginning to express ourselves, because we are not like just one logo or just one product, or like a very simple thing. But I feel that the authenticity of the brand and the attitude and now Chinese girls get it, we've always been the best kept secret of the cool girls in Paris then in New York. And I think now we have been that."

"I'm quite happy to see that Chinese girls and women and now Chinese men start to really understand the brand.

She says that China is a market that matters to the brand. "It's a market that is very specific. And it's time for really understanding. Well, all the specificity is both in terms of styling, attitude, media, everything is very different and very exciting. "