Barbour flagship: Key takeaways
- Barbour has paired its new HKRI Taikoo Hui flagship with the launch of an official Douyin store
- Shanghai-exclusive jackets, personalisation and Hu Yitian bring local relevance to its British heritage
- The opening follows Barbour’s Shanghai festival, which reportedly generated 1.53 billion impressions.
Quintessentially British wax jacket brand Barbour has opened two new sets of doors in China. The first are on a new Shanghai flagship. The others are on a Douyin store. It’s an online-offline expansion that’s combining the scale of online retail with a long brand story.
Barbour have 132 years of brand history behind them
Barbour have 132 years of brand history behind them and are certainly known for more than the wax jackets my introduction nods at. Unwaxed outerwear, knitwear, and accessories are part of the product offering too. That gives the brand room to be for urban life as well as the outdoors.
The flagship spotlights this in archival displays that trace its product development all the way back to South Shields in northeast England. That product line also gets three Shanghai-exclusive unwaxed jackets.
Localisation is present here in this collection through Barbour embroidery and city-inspired charms. Customers can also decorate the brand’s green bandanas with heat-transfer prints inside a dedicated MyBarbour personalisation area.
To give that localisation star power, actor and brand friend Hu Yitian (胡一天) attended the opening in a reversible Transporter jacket. His appearance carried across to a launch-day Douyin livestream, connecting the prestige of the flagship with an online commerce and content channel.
Shanghai has become the centre of Barbour’s Chinese brand-building. In March, the company held its first large-scale immersive festival in Asia at the West Bund Dream Center. Six zones connected individual jackets with cycling, riding, birdwatching, and other outdoor pursuits.
Barbour’s strongest message is provenance and its long history
Music and virtual reality stations accompanied. There was even a dog camp. Barbour has said the festival attracted more than 13,000 visitors and generated 1.53 billion impressions. Not bad figures at all.
The Dao view: Barbour gives heritage two jobs
It’s no coincidence these two openings happened in unison. Much of Barbour’s target market will be shopping through online platforms, but Barbour has good reason for running the flagship model too.
The outdoor-urban market in China is a crowded one. Barbour’s strongest message is provenance and its long history. That’s the kind of story that a flagship can tell. That flagship’s Taikoo Hui location also says a lot. Barbour is telling its story from inside Shanghai’s most premium international retail environment.
