Lancome in China
China puts its best face forward
Shanghai's premier shopping street, West Nanjing Road, may these days style itself as the Fifth Avenue of Asia, but on the busy sidewalks it still throbs with all the color and din of a medieval temple fair.
Until, that is, one steps into the hushed confines of the first Lancome concept store to open anywhere in the world - at which point you might just feel as if you have stepped onto the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, assuming your idea of a space station features sculpted sofas and ever-so-slightly pink walls.
"We wanted to create an environment that suggests luxury, away from the crowded department stores," boutique marketing manager Gu Yaoji told Asia Times Online. "Our boutique customers comprise a select group of rich housewives and xiaobailing [white collar princesses] - and they want to shop for our products and beauty services discreetly, and in comfort."
The Shanghai boutique opened its doors in 2005; and while Japan may still dominate the East Asian cosmetics industry in terms of turnover, as Gu explains the decision to open first in China recognizes not only the extent to which the Chinese market has developed, but also its potential for growth. According to Datamonitor, a business information service, China's makeup industry last year generated revenues of US$1.5 billion - a figure expected to rise to $2.3 billion by 2009.
It is not only the size of the Chinese market (451 million women between the ages of 15 and 64) that attracts manufacturers - it is also the unusually large chunks of their income individual Chinese women seem willing to spend on beauty products.
Already, 90 million urban women spend 10% or more of their annual income on cosmetics - and, unlike in the West, many Chinese women seem happy to spend as much money on makeup as they do on clothes.
On one level, spending patterns reflect current living arrangements in Chinese cities - unmarried urban young women, for example,
Shanghai's premier shopping street, West Nanjing Road, may these days style itself as the Fifth Avenue of Asia, but on the busy sidewalks it still throbs with all the color and din of a medieval temple fair.
Until, that is, one steps into the hushed confines of the first Lancome concept store to open anywhere in the world - at which point you might just feel as if you have stepped onto the set of 2001: A Space Odyssey, assuming your idea of a space station features sculpted sofas and ever-so-slightly pink walls.
"We wanted to create an environment that suggests luxury, away from the crowded department stores," boutique marketing manager Gu Yaoji told Asia Times Online. "Our boutique customers comprise a select group of rich housewives and xiaobailing [white collar princesses] - and they want to shop for our products and beauty services discreetly, and in comfort."
The Shanghai boutique opened its doors in 2005; and while Japan may still dominate the East Asian cosmetics industry in terms of turnover, as Gu explains the decision to open first in China recognizes not only the extent to which the Chinese market has developed, but also its potential for growth. According to Datamonitor, a business information service, China's makeup industry last year generated revenues of US$1.5 billion - a figure expected to rise to $2.3 billion by 2009.
It is not only the size of the Chinese market (451 million women between the ages of 15 and 64) that attracts manufacturers - it is also the unusually large chunks of their income individual Chinese women seem willing to spend on beauty products.
Already, 90 million urban women spend 10% or more of their annual income on cosmetics - and, unlike in the West, many Chinese women seem happy to spend as much money on makeup as they do on clothes.
On one level, spending patterns reflect current living arrangements in Chinese cities - unmarried urban young women, for example,