Already a hugely influential element in the life of a sizeable demographic of young consumers in China, local pop culture is accelerating to reach an even bigger audience with sophisticated new concepts. With over 100 million users, Beijing-based iQIYI is not only the nation’s leading online movie and video streaming website, but also the planet’s biggest. In 2019, the company launched FOURTRY, a reality show featuring pop stars Kris Wu and Wilber Pan, and actors Angelababy, Fu Ke Si, Angel Zhao and Wei Daxun, all hugely popular youth icons. Interestingly, the show format revolves around the star cast’s wheeling and dealing in setting up fashion pop-up store FOURTRY in Asia’s undisputed fashion capital Tokyo. Season two kicked off last December, and the stakes are even higher as an entirely new cast of top influencers, led by Hong Kong-born pop star and actor William Chan, take on the challenge to set up a pop-up store in Chengdu.
Unsurprisingly, it’s one with a focus on lifestyle and fashion with a distinct Chinese twist, signalling the maturity of the country’s youth segment. Boldly called FOURTRY Space, it occupies Tiexiang Temple, an ornate 16th-century structure in the southern suburbs of the city, and which currently is a popular touristic site. iQIYI tapped Shanghai-based design practice StudioLite to create a matching setting, and if you ask us, the result is as audacious as the show’s format. Adopting ‘Flow’ as the pop-up store’s design concept, the waterside temple gained no less than four glass-encased wings, each a modern interpretation of the upward curving cornice of traditional Chinese architecture. From above, the modern extensions look indeed like flows going in and out of the temple structure.
Offering a total retail space of 646 sqm. (6,954 sq.ft.), FOURTRY Space obviously features a retail section, but also a gallery space, a café and working space, while one entire wing is reserved as a control room. After all, the entire venue serves as a set for the reality show. The interior settings are understated and monochrome, and dotted with custom furnishings, allowing the temple structure to pop, even at night. The grounds around the temple has also seen a bold transformation to match the temporary retail space. So, what’s on the shelves at FOURTRY Space? To further boosting the brand value, more themed products linked to a specific lifestyle experience have been created, in addition to collaborations with international cult artists, such as Daniel Arsham who has created a series of products, including an eroded mahjong playing set, a hanging rug, and other items. Prior to the opening of FOURTY Space, an online store was launched on Tmall, one of the biggest online retail platforms, to amplify its reach to young consumers.
FOURTRY Space
Tiexiang Temple, 88 Tiexiangsi Lu (Zhangjianian)
610041 Chengdu
Publishers Note
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