© Gentle Monster

The ongoing transformation of China’s retail landscape is picking up steam again, and especially in the country’s first-tier cities a slew of striking new endeavours can be found. In this category falls Gentle Monster’s new flagship store in Shanghai. Opened only two year ago along Huaihai Zhong Lu, a busy shopping artery in the city’s Jing’an district, it has been expanded – mind you, the floor space now measures 3,350 sqm. (36,059 sq.ft.) – and fully revamped in a bold evocative style the Seoul-based eyewear brand has become renowned for. Now dubbed HAUS Shanghai, an über store category initiated with the opening of HAUS Dosan last February in the South Korean capital, it’s a collective retail showcase, and a grand one at that, with affiliated brands Tamburins and Nudake. Interestingly, the latter, a popular cult dessert brand in South Korea, anchors the renewed outpost, and occupies the entire ground floor with a restaurant.

The setting is both austere and whimsical, and sees an elongated stripped back space that’s intentionally a little rough around the edges. An exposed ceiling and seemingly makeshift wall panels and pitch black concrete flooring are the backdrop of various seating areas with a wide yet tightly curated variety of modern furnishings, ranging from tables and chairs, to side tables and benches, and last but not least, a number of lifesize kinetic horses, and, as a hint of what’s to be found upstairs, Gentle Monster’s colossal signature robot The Probe. The Nudake restaurant introduces local hipsters to its wide range of quirky desserts. One floor up, the planet’s biggest Gentle Monster store unfolds, and the brand has pulled out all the stops to up the shopping experience with a space themed ‘Circulation’ and captured by a series of nifty installations and artworks interspersed with the brand’s eyewear collections. HAUS Shanghai’s third floor is home to a large exhibition space featuring Gentle Monster’s curated media art exhibitions and collaboration pop-ups.

The space, themed ‘The Giant Who Arrived at the Bird Village’, is anchored by a large robotic face, developed by the brand’s Robotics Lab, and features additional sculptures and installations depicting the theme’s bird village. Cosmetics brand Tamburins very first retail outpost in China can be found on the top floor, featuring an intimate yet elegant setting which fully captures the company’s artistic vision. Situated right below the building’s pointed roof, shoppers navigate an airy, art gallery-inspired space with a series of installations, including a wall art installation covered in tree branches which aims to express the intersection of luxury and rawness through the combination of contrasting materials. The setting’s exposed ceiling and black wooden floor ties in with the chosen aesthetic on the ground floor.

HAUS Shanghai
798-812 Huaihai Zhong Lu (Jing’an)
200020 Shanghai
Telephone: +86 136 36604979
Daily 10am-9pm

© Gentle Monster