In mid-January, BOSS, the designer fashion brand from German luxury group HUGO BOSS, opened the doors to its first flagship store in China at the Jing An Kerry Centre in Shanghai. The opening came days after BOSS launched its Chinese New Year (CNY) capsule collection, a collaboration with blockbuster film Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force.
The latest shop shows off the brand’s diverse image with much more than German formal menswear that it has been known for, but also performance wear for cycling, skiing, golf and tennis, and even women’s and children’s wear. The first flagship also comes with the first-ever BOSS CAFÉ in Asia. For the grand opening, BOSS brought Chinese competitive swimmer Wang Shun to the Shanghai flagship as a “manager for a day” and “barista for a day”.
The CNY collection was teased in December with Creation of the Gods star, Chinese actor Li Yunrui. From red-coloured tops to ancient Chinese totem motifs, the collection brings together the mythological elements from the film (and novel it’s based on) and the Spring Festival. The topic “BOSS CNY Creation of the Gods collaboration collection” (#BOSS新春封神联名系列#) gained 9.59 million views on Weibo, China’s Twitter equivalent. As expected on the platform, most of the engagements are from Li’s fanbase.
Judith Sun (孙珏), managing director for Greater China at HUGO BOSS, stated in an interview that the brand now has a wide range of audiences across age groups in China but is still focusing on Millennials. Its current strategy still places China and Chinese consumers at the top of its priorities. She unveiled that the key insights and tactics in China are: to view China as a multi-faceted market instead of a single market and to keep focusing on brand values and narrative. Deeper localisation such as the CNY campaign as well as digital channels including livestreaming are also used for telling the brand story.
Back in November, HUGO BOSS released its financial report for Q3 2024, which showed that the group secured revenue growth of 1% for the quarter and 2% in the first 9 months of the year. EBIT profit reached 9.5 million EUR ((9.96 million USD) with a 3% profit margin. It would seem the current strategy is working for HUGO BOSS.
