What Shanghai’s luxe malls can learn from Wukang Road

This fall, three very different brands chose Shanghai’s Wukang Road. Semir, the mass-market Chinese apparel group, opened Semir Lab, its first global concept store, in a restored garden villa. Extreme Cashmere, the Amsterdam knitwear label, opened its first store in China. And Chanel brought an alpine setting to its Coco Neige pop-up at 40 Wukang Road. For years, malls relied on the right brands to make an address desirable. On Wukang Road, the relationship is reversed: the brands are choosing an address whose appeal was established before they arrived. Walk down Wukang today and the change is hard to miss. Pop-ups follow one another, and the names on the doors are more familiar each season. Even the convenience store has been restyled. The street is still lovely. It is also starting to look rather like a catalog of itself. What can a street like Wukang Road offer a brand that a prestigious mall with better footfall and bigger neighbors cannot? They arrive somewhere people already choose to spend time. Around Wukang, Anfu Road and Julu Road, small labels, cafes and the pleasure of walking give visitors reasons to come without a purchase in mind. Shopping happens along the way. A brand can become part of that afternoon without having to be its main attraction. The setting matters, too. A villa on Wukang supplies a history the label did not have to earn. The shop becomes part of somewhere visitors already find appealing, before they have seen a product or recognized the name above the door. In a mall, the floor and the surrounding stores announce where a brand sits. On Wukang, Semir and Chanel share the same trees. A seasonal pop-up can sit beside a shop that has been there for years. If brands no longer make an address desirable on their own, what gives a premium mall a reason to exist? Luxury groups are becoming more selective about where they invest. National Business Daily said in October that store closures are taking place alongside flagship openings and renovations. For landlords, attracting a prestigious name now means convincing it that this particular address deserves the investment. Shanghai, meanwhile, keeps adding places to shop. Ten new retail projects delivered approximately 1.22 million square meters in the first half of this year, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Developers have already recognized the attraction of neighborhood life. Hang Lung Properties is adding restaurants, a roof garden and an open-air pavilion at Plaza 66. The streets are turning into malls, and the malls are turning into streets. But signing the brands that followed a neighborhood’s appeal does not automatically bring the neighborhood with them. The harder task is to create a place people want to spend time in for its own sake. Tianzifang offers a caution. Its lane houses helped attract artists and small businesses before souvenir shopping became a larger part of the offer. Preserving the buildings does not necessarily preserve what first made a place distinctive. China is often at the forefront of retail innovation. Paris offers a different context, but Le Bon Marché, owned by LVMH, provides inspiration for how a retailer can draw on the character of its district. On the Left Bank, its recurring exhibitions and live performances make the department store part of the cultural offer. Mourad Merzouki’s “Babel,” a ticketed performance, returned for a second season this fall and runs to the end of December. Last year, the dog-themed exhibition “Je t’aime comme un chien!” offered discovery of another kind, bringing together merchandise, workshops, services and a cafe with independent magazine Bâtard. Local residents get fresh reasons to return to a department store that also attracts tourists. It can also bring aspirational shoppers into the experience, with smaller purchases that let them leave with a Le Bon Marché bag even if much of the usual offer is beyond their budget. Existing luxury clients have varied interests, too. A mall organized mainly around prestigious brands risks serving only the part of their lives that involves buying luxury. Customers may want discovery on one visit and privacy on the next. Premium malls have room to offer both, with private salons and attentive service alongside more varied shops and cultural programming. Plaza 66 plans to enlarge its top-client lounge by 65% to 724 square meters, opening in the first quarter of 2027. A quiet appointment with a sales associate who knows the client is another reason to return. Serving more of those interests also means reconsidering who gets a lease. A small independent shop or cafe may give a regular customer something new to discover, even if it cannot pay the rent of a luxury house. Landlords already offer favorable terms to big names that attract shoppers. Smaller units, shorter leases or rents linked partly to sales could extend that logic to less established businesses. The test is whether they bring people back and help other tenants trade. Some tenants may be worth more to their neighbors than their rent suggests. Wukang Road became a destination without entirely ceasing to be a neighborhood. Its appeal grew from the buildings, the life between them and businesses far smaller than the brands now arriving. A premium mall that understands how those things work together may find something more useful than a street to imitate: a way to build an appeal of its own. China State of Play is a strategic intelligence program from Jing Daily and Other Logic Partners. Marc-Olivier Arnold is co-founder of Other Logic Partners, where he advises CEOs and founders of premium brands on China and Asia, and Chinese brands on expanding internationally. He has worked between Europe and Asia for more than 20 years.

What Shanghai’s luxe malls can learn from Wukang Road

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What Shanghai’s luxe malls can learn from Wukang Road

TUMI’s new growth playbook: From travel expertise to lifestyle performance