When stores become destinations: Louis Vuitton’s Beijing vision

What happened Following the Shanghai “Louis” landmark, Louis Vuitton unveiled its new Maison Louis Vuitton Sanlitun in Beijing’s trendsetting district on December 19, 2025. Designed by long-time collaborator Jun Aoki, who transformed stores on Tokyo’s Omotesando and Namiki Dori into embedded urban aesthetic symbols, the Beijing project fuses a millennium of the city’s cultural layers with Louis Vuitton’s modern, progressive spirit. This is more than a store — it is an architectural manifesto on time, tradition, and the future. The design draws on two key inspirations. The first is the Taihu Stone, a refined element of classical Chinese gardens. Aoki translated the stone’s weathered, porous, ethereal form into a second glass skin for the façade — an “architectural lace” of flowing, non-geometric contours that capture the essence of Zen while giving the building a breathing, sculptural presence. The second inspiration comes directly from fashion: a signature dress by Nicolas Ghesquière, Artistic Director of Women’s Collections, the finale of the Spring-Summer 2016 show. Far from a literal reference, it embodies Louis Vuitton’s ongoing dialogue between the structural rigor of architecture and the fluidity of fashion. The building itself becomes a city-scale, habitable haute couture piece. The two layers overlap to create a luminous, breathing spectacle. The inner envelope provides insulation, while the outer is composed of hand-curved glass panels, like a bespoke “glass haute couture.” Translucent and dichroic, the façade transforms with the trajectory of sunlight, seasonal shifts, and changing weather — at times crystalline, at times misty — revealing and concealing in a constant play of light and shadow. Spread across four floors, the Maison unfolds like a four-act poem. Louis Vuitton’s iconic collections are displayed throughout: Men’s and Women’s Leather Goods, Ready-to-Wear, Jewellery, Shoes, Perfumes, Beauty, and Accessories. The third floor is dedicated to the Art of Home, presenting the new Home collection in a space that can be privatized, featuring curated furniture, textiles, and tableware for an intimate, narrative-driven experience. On the fourth floor, Le Café Louis Vuitton makes its Beijing debut as an immersive destination, offering lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. The Jing Take Beyond Beijing, in June 2025, Louis Vuitton unveiled the “Louis” landmark on Shanghai’s Nanjing West Road, one of the year’s most striking luxury brand statements. Anchored at the main entrance of HKRI Taikoo Hui, the building quickly became a city-level phenomenon, attracting international visitors and amplifying the mall’s foot traffic and commercial gravity, effectively energizing the entire district. If Maison Louis Vuitton Sanlitun in Beijing and the Shanghai “Louis” landmark represent the brand’s highest form of city-scale expression, its other key locations demonstrate a more systemic approach to spatial storytelling. In April, the brand brought the Art of Travel directly into Shenzhen Bao’an Airport, embedding it in a highly transient public space and, for the first time in China, presenting a signature flying device as a symbolic homage to Louis Vuitton’s core heritage. On December 6, the new store at Wuhan SKP opened, its façade echoing the classic Monogram module composition from Shenzhen but on a finer scale, producing a fluid, water-like effect that resonates with Wuhan’s identity as the “City of a Thousand Lakes,” and integrating brand language with local culture. Continuing its spatial strategy, Louis Vuitton relaunched its Shanghai IFC boutique on December 17. Centered on “heritage and innovation,” the store blends the brand’s classic craftsmanship with contemporary aesthetics, incorporating upcycled installations sourced from the Osaka World Expo. The design not only embodies a commitment to sustainability but also channels the creative energy of a global event into the local space — telling a brand story that transcends time and geography, in both materials and spirit. These retail layouts make clear that Louis Vuitton’s spatial strategy is no longer about mere store expansion. It is a systematic commercial framework grounded in the clarity of brand assets. Its logic lies in allocating capital, spatial scale, and functions according to each city and scenario, building a multi-tiered, scalable, and sustainable retail ecosystem. The system has at least two levels. The first comprises landmark flagships such as Maison Louis Vuitton Sanlitun and the Shanghai “Louis” landmark. These spaces are not primarily about immediate sales; they are cultural platforms, translating the brand’s Travel DNA into irreplicable urban icons, claiming a cultural and media high ground, and generating long-term, cross-cycle brand equity. The second level includes strategic hubs such as Shenzhen Bao’an Airport and Wuhan SKP, which intersect with high-net-worth daily routines and core consumption moments, transforming the aspirational narrative of the flagships into tangible, experiential, and transactional touchpoints. Together, the two levels allow Louis Vuitton to generate city-scale cultural conversation while maintaining penetration and service density in critical consumer environments. This vertical integration — from landmark creation to everyday touchpoints — forms the external structure that keeps the brand ahead in today’s luxury landscape. Yet, the brilliance goes beyond structure. Louis Vuitton never confines its Travel DNA to departures, arrivals, or journeys. Instead, through a series of highly integrated spatial forms, it translates Travel into a “lifestyle system” that can be accessed, experienced, and revisited daily. Here, space transcends commerce, becoming a vessel for sustained brand value and ongoing imagination of an ideal life. This translation relies on a deep-seated psychological mechanism embedded in the brand’s behavior: “accessible scarcity.” Within this paradigm, monumental landmarks and open experience spaces generate unrestricted allure and public conversation, serving as mass touchpoints. Meanwhile, private services, limited editions, and membership tiers act as precise valves, regulating access to top products and core relationships. Louis Vuitton’s spaces thus operate as dynamic filters and rituals. The ultimate achievement lies not only in building a physical retail network but in the meticulous orchestration of “distance” — making the brand always visible, tangible, and desirable, yet never fully attainable — sustaining the tension and hierarchy that drive its enduring value. The Jing Take reports on a piece of the leading news and presents our editorial team’s analysis of the key implications for the luxury industry. In the recurring column, we analyze everything from product drops and mergers to heated debate sprouting on Chinese social media.

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When stores become destinations: Louis Vuitton’s Beijing vision