After nearly 6 months of teasing, the highly anticipated La Beauté Louis Vuitton beauty collection has finally arrived. With its new cosmetics creative director, Dame Pat McGrath, the French luxury fashion house has entered the beauty space with fanfare. While the launch of the 55 LV Rouge lipsticks, priced at 160 USD a tube, grabbed headlines, the store’s location is also under the spotlight. The first Louis Vuitton beauty store is situated in Deji Plaza (德基广场) in Nanjing, a city in eastern China not far from Shanghai.
The collection includes 55 lipsticks, 10 lip balms and 8 eyeshadows, and will be available globally in select Louis Vuitton stores and on its official website from 29 August, following pre-orders that opened on 25 August. Customers in Nanjing, however, have been able to view the products in person since 20 August. This sparked discussion online surrounding the high prices and the product design, pitted against its competitors like Chanel and Hermès.
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The choice of location for the dedicated beauty store from Louis Vuitton is part of its localisation strategy in China, recently exemplified by The Louis, the ship-shaped concept space in Shanghai. Deji Plaza became the highest-selling high-end shopping centre in China in 2024, generating 24.5 billion RMB (3.43 billion USD), a 15% year-on-year increase, overtaking SKP Beijing. Nanjing, despite ranking only 10th in total GDP among Chinese cities, has the highest retail sales of consumer goods per capita. The choice of both the location and the city reflects Louis Vuitton’s informed localisation strategy. How the colour cosmetics line fares in the long term, however, remains to be observed.
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