In urban China, literature is brands’ new best friend. Over the past few months, bookstores have emerged a hotspot for both global lifestyle brands and domestic direct-to-consumer labels to engage with the country’s increasingly culture-conscious consumers. Last week in Shanghai, savvy urbanites queued outside Aesop’s stores, as the Australian luxury skincare brand gave out approximately 23,000 books by female authors for free during its “Women's Literature Library” event. The event was cut short on March 4, two days ahead of schedule, due to stock depletion, as per Aesop’s statement. Nevertheless, its impact has transcended local marketing stunts, with Aesop’s curated Shanghai booklist featuring works from female authors like Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag, and Chinese scholar Zhang Li generating over 1.2 million views on Xiaohongshu, prompting users to share the list as an aspirational reading resolution to delve into women’s issues. This follows the success of last year’s initiative, when Aesop transformed its Shanghai flagship into a library filled with gender study literature during Women’s Day 2023 and ignited a social media sensation. In the run up to International Women’s Day, Parisian fashion house Longchamp launched a “Longchamp University” pop-up at the Tsutaya Bookstore in Shanghai. Open till March 13, the bookstore pop-up space invites visitors to immerse themselves in a Parisian art-filled ambience and promotes the label’s varsity themed SS24 collection. Last month, To Summer, a C-perfume label, anchored its second Shanghai flagship, in the city’s Bund district, entirely around the theme of reading. The brand collaborated with Shanghai’s feminist bookstore Paper Moon to curate the store’s book display. In addition, the label created a scent inspired by Shanghainese women intellectuals from the 1920s and released a “Nosepaper,” a literary publication, featuring works by 10 Chinese female writers. The goal is to “recreate a ‘room of one’s own’ like the one for Virginia Woolf,” as described by the brand founder in a statement. Luxury brands with a longstanding affinity for culture, such as Louis Vuitton, have also embraced the bookstore zeitgeist in their China marketing strategies. In October last year, the Parisian maison transformed Fotografiska Shanghai into a temporary cultural space titled “Nonghao Shanghai” with pop-up bookstores. Nonghao is Shanghainese for hello. During the launch period, the brand debuted its first Chinese-language podcast, “Louis Vuitton Extended,” celebrating contemporary Shanghainese culture. Page by page On the one hand, the reasons why luxury and lifestyle brands are embracing literature in China are obvious. Chinese consumers are becoming more discerning and culture oriented. They increasingly seek deeper meaning from their purchases. After all, from Louis Vuitton’s Librarie éphémère project and the Gucci Wooster Bookstore in New York’s Soho, to Saint Laurent’s recent opening of the Babylone bookstore in Paris, bookstores have long been a space for brands to showcase their cultural nous. And it seems natural that a similar progression would take place in China’s consumer society. On the other hand, the timing of this bookstore collaboration boom is particularly telling of the attitudes and values of China’s new-gen consumers, and where they stand today. First, most of these bookstore collabs have centered on gender issues unique to Chinese society, offering brands a platform to resonate with young, educated urbanites. Feminism and sisterhood have emerged as prominent themes. The books on display in To Summer’s Shanghai flagship and the booklist curated by Aesop’s “Women's Literature Library,” are all classic reads on global feminism and gender studies in China. On March 4, Dior co-hosted a “Woman for Women” talk with T Magazine China on the occasion of International Women’s Day, featuring guests like artist Zhou Li and Olympic champion Zhang Hong sharing personal challenges and celebrating sisterhood. Similarly, Chinese D2C underwear brand Ubras leveraged World Book Day in April 2023 to host a “female-friendly” reading festival in Wuhan, for which it partnered with 18 local independent bookstores to promote female-authored works. Visitors were encouraged to exchange personal essays relating to the brand’s signature bras. The connecting dots between wireless bras and personal writing? “As a brand of comfort and freedom, we believe freedom of the mind is equally important as freedom of the body," Ubras’ public relations statement said. The rise in feminism-themed bookstore collabs coincides with an increase in the number of feminist spaces in urban China. According to a report by local media The Paper, feminist bookstores and female-friendly retail spaces are on the rise in top-tier cities, such as Shanghai and Chengdu. By aligning themselves with local cultural leaders, brands create symbolic spaces to connect with their ideal demographic: China’s young, educated consumers. Creating connectivity In addition to gender issue awareness, the cohort’s yearning for a slower pace of living also served as a key driver. Books’ ability to evoke intimacy is crucial to brands. “Bookstores are a great space to create personal and private experiences. They are meant to help people look inwards; therefore, they are ideal [spaces] for brands to build a deeper connection with visitors,” said Christian Lai, an architect at retail design studio Atelier Lai. Young, urban Chinese are in the grips of ultrafast, stressful lifestyles. Next day delivery is expected as the minimum for most e-commerce purchases, and restaurants often offer “full refunds” as standard if on-site orders don’t arrive within 15 minutes. The bookstore’s symbolism as a sanctuary away from the frenetic pace of life plays a part in why brands are reinventing themselves as cultural hubs and quiet spaces. “The book is the most visible form of culture and a symbol of slow, deep reflection. The symbolic quietness of bookstores makes them the perfect place for brands to articulate values and engage with consumers on a deeper level,” says Siyu Jin, Head of Creatives at Shanghai-based agency Heaven&Hell. From feminist reading spaces to urban sanctuaries, the surge in bookstore collabs highlights how consumer aspirations are shaped by brands’ cultural capital. As cultural values continue to move up young Chinese shoppers’ list of priorities, bookstores, or other culture spaces, provide brands with a new channel to connect with consumers more meaningfully.
