Surrounded by stalls of antiques from fine china to books amongst the aroma of ginger ale, you might think you’re in the Sunbury Antiques Market in Surrey, England, just outside of London. But in fact, you’re in the Wulumuqi Middle Road Market, a local wet market in Shanghai. It is the British luxury perfumer Jo Malone London who has brought the distinctive British feature to the middle of Shanghai.
Each year, Jo Malone launches a collection of fragrances called the Brit Collection, a limited-edition collection of British-inspired scents. This year, the collection is called Scented Momentos. The collection is inspired by Jo Malone’s Global Head of Fragrance, Céline Roux’s upbringing and childhood memories in English antique markets. There are four fragrances in the line, the Musk Memento, Passiflora, Emerald Thyme and Ginger Beer, each will set you back 690 RMB (96.92 USD) for a 30ml bottle, and a 200g musky candle costing 600 RMB (84.28 USD). Each of the four scents is represented by a stall.
For the launch, Jo Malone brought in four celebrities to explore the stalls in the market, including Men Qiang, Chen Xingxu, Wang Ju and Tong Chenjie. There’s a photo booth for paying customers to take 4 snapshots on the first floor of the Jo Malone antique market. Visitors also have the chance to win perfume samples with social engagement. Interestingly, the Wulumuqi Middle Road Market was where Prada hosted its viral campaign back in 2021. For this reason, some feel there’s less element of surprise from the mismatch between the wet market and luxury brands. Some also observed that fewer people came to “check-in” (打卡) at the immersive pop-up location.
Offline pop-ups have been very popular among brands. How to balance the country of origin heritage and hyper-local marketing has been a key question, especially for luxury players. The Jo Malone antique market is similar to Burberry’s Burberry Street takeover in this respect, as the trench coat maker brought Norman’s Café from London to Shanghai. However, Jo Malone, as a fragrance specialist, may not have the same draw as Prada from the wet market so the localised element equally might not have the same effect. But judging from the Weibo engagement, the star power of the celebrity guests more than made up for it.
