On 16 August, French-Japanese designer fashion brand Maison Kitsuné announced that it had launched a pop-up space to celebrate the opening of its first store in South China at the MixC World in Shenzhen. The opening event was attended by brand ambassador Wei Daxun, Maison Kitsuné Greater China CEO Alexandre Dam and COO Hua Zhen’er.
The pop-up space is called “Fox Now Box” (狐now盒子), a play on “胡闹” (messing around), but changing the “胡” (hu), to “狐” (hu, meaning fox, same as kitsune in Japanese), and “闹” (nao) to the similarly pronounced now, becoming “fox now”. The blue-and-yellow Box is located in the MXTR District and will be open from now to early October. It will combine fashion, coffee and music, all in the brand DNA where you can interact with various touch points from a rhythm music game to a snapshot photo booth. Plenty of options for “foxing” about.
The Maison Kitsuné Shenzhen store itself is a bit more elegant and less entertainment-oriented. With a natural wood colour and simple shelving, the shop is home to all classics, current season collections and collaboration items.
The Fox Now Box also invited many influencers to play, creating inspirations for visitors’ “check-in” (打卡) ideas. On Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent, the topic “Fox now this summer” (#狐NOW一夏#) gained an impressive 11.97 million views for a local opening, possibly due to Wei Daxun’s star power. Of course, Wei Daxun also visited and released a photoshoot in the pop-up store on Weibo through his studio. With the brand gradually expanding in China, Maison Kitsuné provided a textbook example of a local store opening, with an A-list celebrity, a fun interactive pop-up with a punny tagline and following up with influencers. It is worth watching how the Maison plans to grow in China.
