EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BURBERRY’S SOCIAL STORE IN CHINA: INTERACTIVE WINDOW, SOCIAL CURRENCY, ANIMAL AVATARS, REWARDS AND CAFÉ…
We now have acknowledged that the post-pandemic world is projecting us in the new digital era. Among all the businesses which are reconsidering their current asset to adopt it to the new global rules, the fashion industry is rapidly going through huge changes, as we have seen with the system’s revolution brought with the Digital Fashion Weeks. And today the fashion of the future’s biggest news come from the reign of rain and trench coats.
Burberry is the first luxury maison to try a social retail store. In partnership with the technology giant Tencent, the British heritage house opens the store today in Shenzhen, blending the physical and social worlds in a digitally immersive retail experience. The space, designed to inspire and entertain, makes you interact with the brand and product in new and exciting ways, takes interactions from social media and brings them into a physical retail environment.
Through a dedicated WeChat mini program, you can unlock exclusive content and personalised experiences and share them with your followers. The store is made up of a series of spaces, each with its own concept and personality offering a unique interactive experience. Drawing upon Burberry’s rich heritage, the store also celebrates the house codes as reinterpreted by Riccardo Tisci, including the Trench Coat, the Thomas Burberry Monogram, Nature and the Burberry Animal Kingdom.
Thomas Burberry was an inventor and a dreamer. The new social retail store reflects Burberry’s pioneering history of firsts and ambition to continue to push boundaries through innovation and creativity.
THE WECHAT MINI PROGRAM
With Tencent, Burberry has developed a custom mini program, which brings the store to life through exclusive content and personalised experiences that can be unlocked on WeChat. The mini program is a bespoke digital companion to enhance the way you experience the store, whether you are there physically or virtually. Through it, you can access features such as store tours and learn about products.
Each customer is given an avatar, a playful animal character that evolves as they engage in- store and social, with new characters and outfits to discover. The mini program also provides a platform for dedicated client services, in-store appointment bookings, events and table reservations in Thomas’s Cafe, the in-store café and community space.
THE STORE
The new 539 sqm/5800 sqft store features 10 rooms and offers a truly interactive experience, with features including:
Interactive Store Window
Entering the store, you discover the first digital experience. A living sculpture, inspired by the mirrored runway from the Burberry AW 2020 runway show Memories, the window reflects your shape and responds to body movement, creating a unique moment that can be captured and shared with friends. The window evolves through the seasons to reflect the latest collections and house codes.
The Trench Experience and The Shenzhen Capsule Collection
As a celebration of the signature Burberry trench coat, it is an exclusive space that you can unlock as you build your social currency. A homage to Thomas’s Burberry’s vision to create a breathable weatherproof fabric to protect against the elements, the room is designed as a digitally immersive journey through nature, bringing Burberry’s heritage of exploration to life and creating personal content to share with your social community.
Also, exclusive to the Shenzhen store, a capsule collection offers a selection of casual pieces for men and women. Alongside t-shirts, sweatshirts and washed denim jackets with a metallic logo appliqué, the collection includes jackets in the Thomas Burberry Monogram print made in Econyl fabric, a sustainable nylon yarn made from regenerated fishing nets, fabric scraps and industrial plastic.
QR Codes
You can find Burberry’s latest collections, seasonal products and discover exclusive pieces only available to buy in the Shenzhen store. Each category has its own dedicated area and all products are labelled with QR codes that connect to digital screens, further enhancing the in-store experience. Scanning the QR code unlocks additional content and product storytelling within the mini program and contributes towards building social currency. This is the first Burberry store to include scannable QR codes on product swing tags, adding a digital layer of discovery.
Thomas’s Cafe
To complement the store is Thomas’s Cafe, a dedicated space for the Burberry community to connect. Named after the fashion house’s founder, Thomas Burberry, Thomas’s Cafe takes inspiration from the creative codes introduced by Chief Creative Officer Riccardo Tisci, including high-gloss tones of beige, layered curtains and chamfered mirroring. Nature and Burberry’s Animal Kingdom are also referenced throughout the space and can be seen in the prints on the wall, taken from the brand’s archives by Riccardo, as well as in the bespoke tableware that is exclusive to the Thomas’s Cafe. The menu celebrates English and Chinese tea culture with playful and modern fusion elements. The café menu can also evolve as customers engage with the WeChat mini program and their social currency advances, unlocking new menu items. The café is designed as a dynamic space, which can be converted into a community space for activities including talks, workshops, exhibitions and live performances, with bookings made through the mini program.
Fitting Rooms
The store houses three fittings rooms, each with its own creative concept: the Burberry Animal Kingdom, Reflections and the Thomas Burberry Monogram. The fitting rooms are designed to celebrate the experience of trying on Burberry product and each has a dedicated library of playlists to listen to. You can pre-book your preferred room through the mini program.
