Youngor (雅戈尔), a fashion brand that is known for investing in everything, is back in the real estate game after a brief stint back in fashion. This time, it launched a rather ambitious project, the first sustainable lifestyle commercial space in China at the iconic Middle Huaihai Road in Shanghai. The location, now called the HAI550 because it is at 550 Middle Huaihai Road, was once a theatre in the 1930s and a cinema in the 1950s before becoming the world’s first Barbie flagship store in 2009.
The space spans 8 storeys with over 7,000 sqm. The ground floor does not contain any shops and is reserved for content creation and campaigns such as pop-up shops and exhibitions. On the first day of opening, the ground floor hosted two activations, a Patagonia workshop and a mechanical art installation called “Realities Printer”.
The upper floors are now home to many young and creative brands with a sustainable ethos. From shoes made from recycled plastic bottles to a “top-up” shop that sells products without packaging. Youngor also operates a space of its own in the building, the Youngor Lab. An off-white space resembling a gallery, the space is used as a Youngor shop but the garments are displayed in the style of art objects in a museum.
The building itself utilises recycled and sustainable materials from industrial waste such as leftover wood and bricks. The HAI550 is Youngor’s exploration of retail spaces, with its design-centric layout, and the space also tries to bring “fun” back to shopping. Interestingly, it only has a handful of food and beverage outlets, which is rare in today’s retail landscape. Even the escalators only go up for energy saving purposes. High streets in Chinese cities face challenges as many stores and restaurants closed on Middle Huaihai Road over the past few years, but the new space can be seen as an exploration into experiential retail to bring back the footfall.
