Ghost Month’s lingering influence on China’s luxury market

For luxury houses, China’s lunar festive calendar has long served as a map of commercial opportunities. The Spring Festival, Qixi, and the Mid-Autumn Festival, to name a few, have all become highly charged occasions when luxury brands roll out elaborate, culturally attuned campaigns across the world’s second-largest luxury market. However, Ghost Month, freighted with associations of death and the afterlife, seems to be an awkward entry point. Ghost Month is the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, peaking on the 15th day with the (Hungry) Ghost Festival or Zhongyuan Festival. In 2026, it falls between August 13 and September 10. According to cultural and religious tradition, it’s a time when deceased ancestors and roaming spirits visit the living world. The gates of the netherworld open on the first day of the month and close at the end, after people make final food offerings to send the spirits back to rest. Over time, those beliefs, with roots in both Taoism and Buddhism, have extended beyond ritual into daily decision-making around new beginnings such as weddings, moving homes, and store openings. Ghost Month continues to carry a reputation as an inauspicious time for fresh starts and high-profile moments. As a result, it remains one of the trickiest periods for international luxury brands marketing in China. From appeasing spirits to processing grief Traditionally, Ghost Month was marked by intricate rituals to honor ancestors and appease wandering souls. Households and businesses alike would set out a lavish assortment of food offerings, burn joss paper, set lotus flower-shaped lanterns adrift, and stage operas for deities. In Taiwan, Hong Kong, and a few southern provinces on the mainland, it can still be a highly ceremonial affair. Some of the practices have become less prominent among younger urbanites, who are embracing a changing attitude toward death. They no longer treat death solely as a taboo subject shrouded in somber, macabre overtones but increasingly as something that can be openly discussed, expressed, and reflected on. On Xiaohongshu (RedNote), among the 3 million notes with the hashtag #ZhongyuanFestival (#中元节), many reflect on death and how people make sense of losing their loved ones. Others trace the festival’s origins to argue that it’s actually a respectful occasion for remembrance despite its popular associations with ghosts. “Many people are scared of the 15th day without knowing that there were neither ghosts nor horror stories associated with this day in history,” one Xiaohonogshu user said in a video. “What the festival truly commemorates is not death itself but those we have never forgotten.” Many voiced similar sentiments, describing grief as something that can be carried over a lifetime. “I think I’ve accepted that he’s gone, but I underestimated how much I’d miss him,” another netizen wrote in remembrance of her father. Despite this subtle shift in how younger generations view death and grieve, superstitions around Ghost Month remain highly visible. Ahead of the 15th day, which fell on August 27 this year, long lists of superstitions circulated across China’s social media platforms. On Weibo, the related hashtag accumulated 1.7 million views, while tagged content on Xiaohongshu reached 484 million views at the time of writing. Some users still take certain taboos seriously, from avoiding nighttime swimming and walking beside walls to steering clear of foods like sashimi and barbecue. Others use the eve of the festival to sort through old belongings while warning against strenuous exercise and staying up late. The Chinese reverence of the unknown has become part of how younger generations observe the month. Recast as a ritual of love and memory, the festival has lost little of its cultural relevance. How superstition influences business decisions These lingering cultural references continue to filter into informal market codes for businesses, albeit in ways that are often inconspicuous. Some traditional department stores, mall operators, and local franchisees still refrain from grand openings, ribbon-cuttings, and other auspicious occasions during this period. The caution doesn’t necessarily stem from superstition itself; avoiding a sensitive date can simply be a form of prudent risk management, given the low cost and limited interruption involved. For international luxury houses, however, completely avoiding the month can be difficult, partly because such lunar calendar sensitivities are not always factored into global campaign timelines. More importantly, Qixi — Chinese Valentine’s Day, which has become the largest mid-year occasion for luxury gifting in China — falls squarely within it. Since the mid-2010s, almost every big name in luxury has marked Qixi, the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, with new capsule collections and extensive campaigns spanning immersive exhibitions, celebrity-led activations, and cinematic storytelling. This year, six Kering houses rolled out high-profile Qixi campaigns, each balancing their own brand ethos with a distinct take on Chinese romance. The calendar proximity makes cultural calibration all the more delicate. Recent years have seen a few Qixi designs or campaigns misfire, with consumers jokingly comparing them to Zhongyuan Festival advertising for their dark palettes, heavy makeup, eerie visual cues, or stiff narratives. The reactions reveal that Ghost Month still exists as a highly legible cultural and aesthetic code among younger Chinese consumers. Its dark, eerie, death-tinged imagery remains instantly recognizable. For luxury brands, the takeaway is less about blanket avoidance of Ghost Month and more about remaining sensitive to the two occasions that carry very different emotional registers. Younger consumers still approach the festival with a sense of seriousness and reverence for life and nature, though they may no longer believe that the festival should dictate decisions such as when to open a business. That tension makes timing an open question. Shanghai’s Plaza 66, one of China’s largest ultra-luxury shopping destinations, has announced that its new Pavilion expansion will open in September, bringing in 27 new luxury and lifestyle brands, from Balmain to Santa Maria Novella. But it has yet to disclose the exact date. Whether or not the decision is shaped by lunar calendar taboos, the opening may serve as a live test of how much Ghost Month’s enduring cultural weight still factors into business decisions.

Ghost Month’s lingering influence on China’s luxury market

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Ghost Month’s lingering influence on China’s luxury market

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag