Giant tomatoes, Burberry gardens: China’s top 10 retail installations of 2026 so far

Delicious cakes, giant vegetables, and video games brought to life — the retail pop-ups being installed across China this year have truly stirred the delight of netizens. In a market where immersive experiences are key to retail survival, both luxury and mass-market brands have served up viral moments through art collaborations and impressive in-store set design. Below, Jing Daily rounds up the top 10 retail installations of 2026 so far. 1. Asics’ Chengdu video game Date: July 23 to 26 This summer, Asics built a pop-up in Chengdu that recreated a city street indoors, complete with textured red brick walls, oversized posters, and a zebra crossing. The space existed to launch two sneakers, the Gel-Phai Z and Hypersync, both slim-soled and lifestyle-oriented rather than performance-focused. Accordingly, the activation was built around walking instead of running, shifting away from the speed narrative that usually accompanies a running brand launch. Visitors could move through four zones: an energy station opened the route, followed by a street photography booth, a Paced Research Institute experience dedicated to walking and gait, and a game center for group play. The sequence recreated everyday scenarios, giving visitors a reason to try the shoes in the settings they were designed for. 2. H&M x MLMA goes viral in China Date: July 22 to August 31 The activation might not be China-based, but it is going viral on Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNote). In July, H&M partnered with South Korean multidisciplinary artist MLMA to convert its Seongsu flagship into “All Eyes on Aye and Kuroo,” an installation that clears out the storefront’s usual product displays in favor of a giant pierced sculptural head, tattooed hands and an oversized tattooed stuffed rabbit. The takeover runs past the façade into the store’s “secret chamber” and up to the third floor. Each level is treated as a separate emotional world that MLMA compares to Alice in Wonderland, deepening with every step. MLMA, which stands for “Me Love Me A Lot,” has drawn an audience of more than 1.2 million on Instagram across a decade of independent work spanning music, fashion design and surreal, occasionally grotesque visual art. Her framing for the project — that the space is for participation rather than observation — underlines H&M’s move away from product-led pop-ups toward something visitors engage with. 3. New Balance celebrates bamboo weaving Date: June 26 to July 5 New Balance opened a limited-run exhibition at Chengdu Taikoo Li as part of its “A Century of Craftsmanship: A Journey of Quality” tour. It followed an earlier Shanghai edition and was built around a collaboration with Daoming bamboo weaving, an intangible cultural heritage craft. Bamboo screen installations traced the brand’s 120-year history, from its 1906 founding through classic models, including the 990 and M992. At the center, an interactive display used bamboo structures to visualize Abzorb, the brand’s proprietary foam-and-rubber blend cushioning technology. A workshop set bamboo weaving tools alongside shoemaking implements, while heritage artisan Yang Longmei demonstrated the craft. The new Abzorb 1890A and 1890 models were also on show. 4. Burberry brings English countryside to Shanghai Date: June 22 to August 31 Burberry has turned a corner of Shanghai’s Plaza 66 into a slice of the British countryside, pairing the house’s equestrian heritage with a full-scale English garden. In the Jing’an district mall, the installation features a sculpted hedge maze of topiary knights and hares, anchored by a fountain shaped like the brand’s equestrian knight logo. A giant chessboard and a British-style coffee cart sit outside the boutique, pushing the garden into the mall’s public walkways and offering city-exclusive collectibles. Seasonal ready-to-wear, accessories and leather goods are also on display against the botanical backdrop. 5. Gentle Monster’s giant vegetables Date: June 5 through August Gentle Monster has launched its 2026 Veggie collection through a series of installations that bring oversized agricultural landscapes to retail floors. Opening across Los Angeles, Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing and Bangkok, each site is anchored by a giant tomato sculpture surrounded by “Veggiemon,” a cast of vegetable characters that includes broccoli-like figures, mushrooms with exaggerated mouths, as well as eggplants, radishes and beetroot forms set into mounded planting beds. Plush surfaces, soft textures and enlarged proportions push the result closer to a theme park set than a product launch. An interactive photo booth lets visitors render themselves as Veggiemon. The collection itself comprises 10 folding eyewear designs inspired by the shapes and colors of vegetables, translating those organic silhouettes into structural details on compact frames. The approach continues the Korean brand’s long-running practice of pairing releases with large-scale experiential environments, generating cultural visibility through photography and social sharing rather than through conventional display. 6. Short Sentence’s tomato fiesta Date: May 2 to 31 Shanghai-based fashion and lifestyle brand Short Sentence installed an oversized sculptural tomato in the plaza at Shenzhen’s MixC World, designed as a newsstand and serving as the centerpiece of an activation promoting the brand’s “Fiesta” collection. The concept drew on Spanish fiesta culture and the phrase “La vida son dos días” (“life is short”) staging the public space as a symbolic street party. Wooden produce crates, café seating, tomato floor graphics, recipe books and fresh ingredients extended the motif across the site, alongside games and a food collaboration. Rather than functioning as standalone decoration, the tomato tied the collection, merchandise and food elements to a single theme of gathering and celebration, giving visitors a set to walk through, photograph and shop. 7. Hoka takes over Hangzhou Date: April 29 to May 5 In Hangzhou, Hoka built the “Antelope Space,” an immersive installation translating the brand’s technical running identity into a physical environment. The activation was organized around its Speedgoat franchise, a line rooted in endurance, terrain and progression. Rather than presenting a linear product history, Hoka took visitors through different zones reflecting the line’s evolution. Across the space, mountain rock textures contrasted with urban geometric forms, reflecting the tension at the heart of the brand: performance versus lifestyle, wilderness versus city. 8. Dior serves dessert in Nanjing Date: April 28 to end of June Going viral for turning an AI visual into reality, Dior erected a dessert-themed pop-up at Deji Plaza in Nanjing. The brand constructed three oversized cake slices stacked asymmetrically, each topped with a cherry and stamped with the house logo in gold. One slice opened into a recognizably Dior retail interior, where the Fall 2026 line sat alongside handcrafted glass and ceramic pastries. Confectionery tones carried the theme throughout, with cloudy, colored glass catching the store lighting. The result felt closer to a sensory set than a standard product display. 9. Chanel launches Coco Beach in Shanghai Date: April 25 to May 24 Chanel staged the debut of its Coco Beach 2026 collection, Matthieu Blazy’s first for the line, inside a historic villa in Shanghai’s Xuhui district — a decision that positioned Asia as a launch market rather than a follow-on one. The collection channels a Riviera mood, with braided raffia and lambskin pieces, sculptural mules, pearl-trimmed ballet flats, multicolor swimwear, silk dresses and ecru cotton separates. Accessories carry comparable weight, including wide-brimmed straw hats, amber cat-eye sunglasses and glass jewelry. 10. Ashley Williams x ENG Concept Store Date: March 27 China’s ENG Concept Store co-directed “This Is Enough,” an immersive pop-up and installation with British designer Ashley Williams, at its Huaihai Road location in Shanghai. The opening event featured music by underground electronic music producer Shushu Chiu. Featuring lifelike blonde-fringed dolls, a bunny-eared dressing table, and lifelike dolls, the installation celebrated Williams’ playful, rebellious spirit through irreverent street culture references and nostalgia-driven aesthetics.

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China’s top 10 retail installations of 2026 so far

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag