Central Yards foreshadows a new future for Hong Kong retail

Kim Jones unveiled his new label and its first home on the same day. On October 12, the British designer previously behind menswear at Louis Vuitton, Dior and Dunhill announced his eponymous brand and named Central Yards in Hong Kong as the site of its first global flagship, due to open in October 2027. Developer Henderson Land confirmed the store the following day. Founded in 1976 and listed in Hong Kong since 1981, Henderson Land Development Co. is marking its 50th anniversary this year. It developed The Henderson in Central and was part of the consortium behind the International Finance Centre, which stands next to the Central Yards site. Pairing a Hong Kong flagship with a debut fall/winter 2027 collection made largely in Japan suggests Jones sees East Asia as the starting point for the business. The label will be designed in London, with leather goods crafted in Italy, and further stores are planned across Asia. The store will fill one of five two-level “maisons,” as Henderson calls them, overlooking Victoria Harbour. It will cover about 4,000 square feet, with open terraces and an internal staircase. Beyond Jones himself, the choice says much about Hong Kong’s retail economy. Visitors are back. About 1.6 million arrived during the October 1 to 7 National Day Golden Week holiday, more than 1.41 million of them from mainland China, and hotel occupancy reached 90%, the government said. The mainland figure topped last year’s total, even though last year’s holiday ran a day longer. Spending has been slower to follow. Early in the week, the Hong Kong Retail Management Association said visitor spending remained relatively restrained even as shopping districts were busy, the South China Morning Post reported. The government’s wrap-up was more upbeat, citing single- to double-digit year-on-year growth across retail categories. Money is flowing to high-value discretionary goods and to destination malls that offer something shoppers can’t find elsewhere, while conventional department stores struggle. Introducing Hong Kong’s first ‘groundscraper’ Central Yards is designed to be a leisure destination as much as a shopping one, with a theater, outdoor event spaces and a sky garden alongside its stores. Henderson Land has called it “its most ambitious and sustainable mixed-use development.” Most Hong Kong developments rise; this one stretches out, running about 400 meters along Victoria Harbour in what the developer calls a “groundscraper.” “Usually in Hong Kong, people build tall and skinny,” Tom Andrews, Central Yards’ head of leasing and operations, told Jing Daily in an interview. The project includes a 400-meter bridge linking traditional Central with the harbourfront, which naturally meant quite a different retail design,” he said: “almost like a boulevard street style type shopping experience.” Phase 1, due in 2027, will hold about 300,000 square feet of retail and around 100 brands, most of them new to Hong Kong, Henderson said. Phase 2 follows in 2032. A store for many customers At the announcement briefing, Jones said he was designing for a broad range of shoppers. “I love the idea that different types of people could go in my store and buy different things,” he said. The flagship will sell menswear, womenswear, furniture and even products for pets. “We’re all animal lovers,” he said. Tailoring will anchor the space, and the reason is local. “One thing I notice at lunchtime when I’m walking around Hong Kong is how many men wear suits,” Jones said. “One of the things I really learned when I worked at Dunhill was about how tailoring works in Asia.” Such a bet suits the market. Central’s office crowd still dresses formally, and tailoring brings customers back for fittings, which builds loyalty. Jones is also counting on the loyalty that he has cultivated over the two decades of his fashion journey. “A lot of people have followed my career from all the different houses right back from the beginning, when I started my brand in 2002,” he said. Will there be more global firsts at Central Yards? For Henderson Land, the deal is a pitch to other brands weighing a first store at Central Yards. “Having Kim launching his global first shop with us is a great example of someone creating a new to market flagship in Hong Kong,” Andrews said. “We would definitely be open to more global firsts.” The logic rests on how widely Hong Kong shoppers travel. “A lot of Hong Kong consumers travel around the world, and brands know their customers around the world pretty well,” Andrews said. A label that opens first in Hong Kong meets customers it already knows from Paris or Tokyo, and it gets a showroom that mainland visitors pass through as well. Andrews said Central Yards wants tenants with “a long-term vision” that “really want to create a sense of community.” He is hopeful that the brick-and-mortar vision will combine local and international names. “Kim is international and has given us a lot of demand,” he said. Andrews, whose family has lived in Hong Kong for three generations, said he has “seen Hong Kong for a very, very long time,” yet he said that no retail project has come close to the immensity of Central Yards. The city’s other side Jones’ attachment goes beyond shopping. “I love Hong Kong — the weird side of Hong Kong, the fact that there are king cobras that live here,” he said. He pointed out how quickly the harbour gives way to the Peak and then to wetlands. “Everything’s so close,” he said. That closeness is also an argument for a groundscraper. Henderson Land says the development will be planted with more than 400 trees and 280 plant species, with a sky garden it bills as Central’s largest. A visitor can get from the harbor to the Peak in an afternoon, and Central Yards is betting that shoppers will want that kind of variety in one place. For a city whose visitors are coming back, 2027 could be the year they find a reason to spend.

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Central Yards foreshadows a new future for Hong Kong retail