LONDON – Phoebe Philo is fast-tracking retail expansion in China this September by signing with five prominent local retailers: B1ock, Lane Crawford, SND, Dongliang, and Dover Street Market.
These wholesale partners will launch the brand with Collection C, which is packed with easy shapes, oversized proportions, and a whole lot of attitude across apparel, leather goods, shoes, and accessories.
B1ock is the multibrand retail concept unveiled by JNBY Group in 2020. Located at the fashion group’s Renzo Piano-designed headquarters OōEli in Hangzhou, B1ock spans across 16,000 square meters, or 172,222 square feet, over nine floors.
It’s understood that Phoebe Philo will take up a 550-square-foot shop-in-shop on the fourth floor, which is shared with Astier de Villatte’s first cafe concept in China and two other luxury brands.
Dongliang Shanghai
Courtesy
Both Dongliang and SND are some of China’s most thought-after independent retailers that have been able to expand nationwide in the past decade from their respective home bases of Beijing and Chongqing.
Dongliang will carry Phoebe Philo in its locations in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Aranya, an upmarket resort town two hours’ train ride away from Beijing. SND, meanwhile, will stock Phoebe Philo in Chengdu and Shanghai.
Lane Crawford and Dover Street Market are existing partners of Phoebe Philo. Earlier this year, the brand entered Hong Kong and took up a sizeable area in Lane Crawford’s IFC flagship.
Dover Street Market already carries the brand in London, Paris, and Tokyo. Dover Street Market Beijing, which relocated in 2022 from Taikoo Li Sanlitun to WF Central, a luxury shopping mall complex close to the Forbidden City, is a joint venture with local retailer group I.T.
The mainland China wholesale push arrives only weeks after the brand signed a lease in London’s Mount Street neighborhood in Mayfair, with plans to open its first store on Carlos Place, in a former office building. The store will be across the street from The Row, and a few steps from The Connaught hotel.
The brand began expanding internationally last year, starting with Bergdorf Goodman in New York. It has since waded deeper into brick-and-mortar by wholesaling to a handful of additional marquee retailers, including 10 Corso Como in Milan, Maxfield, and Neiman Marcus in Los Angeles.
Philo’s website ships to the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. and is available in Asia-Pacific on phoebephilo.com, as well as through brick-and-mortar wholesale partners, including Shinsegae International in Seoul, Isetan Shinjuku in Tokyo, and Parlour X in Sydney.
Philo announced she was starting her own brand in 2021, a few years after she wound up an acclaimed 10-year tenure at Celine in Paris.
The mission of her independent, namesake house — which counts LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton as a minority investor — is to create clothing and accessories “rooted in exceptional quality and design.”