The company is expanding its physical retail presence in China with the opening of a new flagship store in Shanghai.
Situated in the city’s landmark Bund Finance Center, the new Paul Smith store comes complete with optical illusions, vintage furniture and no fewer than 6,385 bus tickets playing a part in the shop’s design.
Outside, the Shanghai shop façade consists of slatted cladding which changes colour depending on the viewing angle, shifting from deep royal blue to entirely red, depending on where viewers stand. Walking inside the store, the centrepiece of the shop is a three-by-three metre space, which recreates the size of the designer’s very first shop, opened in his hometown of Nottingham in 1970.
The shop’s also serves as a retail and gallery space with an assortment of artwork from the designer’s personal collection. The fitting room lobby walls are covered in vintage British bus tickets, with a total of 6,385 tickets being used, collected in the UK before being shipped to Shanghai. The design echoes the famous ‘domino room’ of Paul Smith’s Albemarle Street shop in London, which is tiled with 26,000 dominoes.
Inside the Shanghai flagship, shoppers can also purchase the latest collections from the men’s and women’s luxury brand, including ready-to-wear, shoes and accessories.
