© Storeage / Photography: DUNO Studio

B+Tube is a women’s cosmetics brand and retailer specifically geared towards Millennials and Generation Z in China. Following last year’s inauguration of a store at Changsha Jinmao Lanxiu City shopping centre in Changsha, the company has opened a second and equally striking retail space in the heart of the city with an upgraded design concept. The new B+Tube store occupies a 113 sqm. (1,216 sq.ft.) unit at Guo Jie, a sizeable underground shopping arcade situated in a corridor of the city’s Line 1 underground, and once again, it has been designed by Storeage, a retail design practice based in Amsterdam and Shanghai. Similarly to the original store, the new retail space’s aesthetic is loosely based on an old Chinese proverb of a mouse which fell into a rice jar, but here, it manifests in an airy and more dynamic way.

The aisles are lined with a myriad of sleek displays, cabinets and fixtures crafted largely from powder-coated aluminium and steel, and they’re adorned by rows of overarching columns of iridescent steel that lend the setting a cathedral-like aura. The shop façade is captured by latticed steel which extends indoors where it’s used to clad specific sections. In stark contrast, the beauty bar has been designed as a clean white laboratory to emphasise the notion of porcelain skin, a beauty ideal in China. In front of the store, a well-stocked satellite display adorned with a colourful canopy beckons passers-by from afar. The new B+Tube store stocks cosmetics, niche fragrances and lifestyle goods by over 200 brands from home and abroad, and currently includes LancômeSK-IIPEARLONAGuochao WanhuajingGuerlain and Marie Dalgar.

B+Tube
Guojin Jie, 78 Huangxin Zhong Lu, Shop B111 (Tianxin)
410006 Changsha
Telephone: +86 151 11145751
Daily 10am-10pm

© Storeage / Photography: DUNO Studio