Chanel to Reprise Cruise 2024 Show in Shenzhen

NEW HORIZONS: Chanel plans to stage its first major event in China since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, with a repeat showing of its cruise 2024 collection scheduled to be held in Shenzhen on Nov. 2.

“As China’s capital of design, innovation and high technology, this destination, open to the world, creation and the future, is the latest of the many stopovers made by the Chanel cruise collection,” the French luxury brand said in a statement on Thursday.

Located on the Pearl River Delta bordering Hong Kong, Shenzhen has grown in the course of several decades from a fishing village into the capital of China’s Silicon Valley, with a population of 13 million.

It ranked at number eight worldwide in the list of cities with the most billionaires published by Forbes in April, just behind Mumbai and ahead of Singapore, making it a magnet for luxury brands seeking to expand their retail network.  

Chanel opened its first boutique in Shenzhen in December 2021 in the Nanshan District, home to some of China’s largest technology companies. The house has 15 boutiques in China, in addition to two stores dedicated to shoes, one of which opened at the SKP mall in Beijing in March.

This will be its first major event in mainland China since the “Mademoiselle Privé” exhibition in Shanghai in 2019. Prior to that, Chanel staged a replica of its 2016 Métiers d’Art show in Beijing in 2016, as well as a repeat show of the cruise 2018 collection in Chengdu in 2017.

The cruise 2024 line was presented in Los Angeles on May 9 with a show at Paramount Studios attended by celebrities including Margot Robbie, Kristen Stewart and Elle Fanning.

With waves of tense lockdowns and rounds of crackdowns on the tech, real estate and entertainment sectors in 2022, China’s personal luxury sales contracted for the first time in five years, according to Bain & Co. It expects the country to return to 2021 sales levels between the first and second half of 2023.