China’s Multibrand Leader Dongliang Returns to Shanghai

by · WWD

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Dongliang, one of China‘s first multibrand retailers with locations in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Aranya, has finally made its debut in Shanghai with Maison Dongliang, set in a historical villa.

For Charles Wang, the 42-year-old mastermind behind Dongliang, opening the Shanghai store was a homecoming of sorts. More than 20 years ago, Wang was known as a member of fashion’s “Three Musketeers” in Shanghai, a collective that launched one of the city’s first multibrand fashion boutiques.

Alongside Tasha Liu and Lang Nan, the three cofounders launched Dongliang as a retail platform that championed Chinese designers in 2009. However, in 2015, the partnership dissolved — Liu and Nan wanted to pivot Dongliang into an incubator and showcasing platform for Chinese designers, and Wang wanted to focus on pure retail, according to local industry insiders. “We wanted to focus on product and brands, they wanted the ‘Chinese design’ label for marketing purposes,” Wang added.

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After the high-profile split, Liu launched Labelhood and rebranded the Shanghai Dongliang store under the same name, while Wang retained the Dongliang name, left the Shanghai fashion world and anchored himself in Beijing.

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In the Northern capital, Wang began quietly building his fashion boutique business.

Trained as a stage actor, Wang had an intuition for what people wanted. His first store, a salon-like space that lives within the luxurious “Central Park” residential compound, easily stood out for its tasteful selection of Lemaire, Haider Ackermann, Ann Demeulemeester and Uma Wang. The neighborhood shop quickly assembled legions of Hermès-carrying, Kelly Rutherford-type fans.

For the next decade, Dongliang maintained its stable of high quality European brands and steadily expanded to two shops in Beijing, two in Shenzhen, one in Guangzhou and one in Aranya. It also operates three franchise stores for Uma Wang in Beijing, Shenzhen and Aranya.

Dongliang’s latest project in Shanghai is also Wang’s biggest to date — the 700-square-meter, three-story historical villa is part of a small retail complex within a yet-to-be-gentrified and serene neighborhood.

Dongliang’s villa store in Shanghai.Courtesy

“The main reason for opening this Shanghai store is because we felt like our brand mix was ready,” Wang said.

“Perhaps a few years ago, we served a similar clientele as Labelhood, such as the cool kids generation and the Chinese designer fans, but I’m confident to say for now, we have finally worked out a formula that reflects what Dongliang stands for, which is timelessness,” he added.

With a glamorous opening event that attracted more than 1,000 attendees during Shanghai Fashion Week, Wang is adamant that his mini emporium will become one of the franchise’s top-grossing doors. So far, with merchandise flying off the shelves, Wang has already made plans to double the store’s buying budget for fall 2025.

“We’ve always wanted to find a bigger store to give our shoppers a more comprehensive experience,” said Wang, gesturing to a grassy garden filled with Tuscan planters. “That’s why we have all these designer furniture, artworks and books inside the store, so it feels like a home, so the customer feels at ease with themselves, this is not something easily achievable in a shopping mall or a regular building,” Wang added.

Charles WangCourtesy

The first floor of the airy villa is split between lifestyle goods, including Astier de Villatte, Mad Et Len and Ann Demeulemeester x Serax. In the light-filled living room, Our Legacy, Maison Margiela, Lemaire, Jil Sander and more each have a dedicated brand corner.

A staircase with elaborate carvings leads to the second floor, where a main room houses The Row, which is fully outfitted with vintage Pierre Jeanneret furnishing, including a rare office desk made during the Chandigarh project in India.

The Row at Dongliang’s store in Shanghai.Alessandro Wang

The adjacent room on the second floor, made cozier by racks of knitted goods, offers a nuanced collage of wardrobe staples courtesy of Lauren Manoogian, Gabriela Coll Garments, Auralee, Magliano, Toogood and Toteme; across the hall, a small den is filled with menswear, ranging from Martine Rose and Studio Nicholson, to Wang’s own label Yamaumi. Priced from 1,000 renminbi, or $140, to 3,000 renminbi, or $421, the workwear-focused label was inspired by vintage finds in Kyoto, where Wang lived during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the top floor, Wang created an imaginary “artist’s den” that’s stocked with a vast array of cult favorites, including Casey Casey, By Walid, Ms Min, Marc Le Bihan, Guidi, Jeffrey B Small and Victor & Rolf’s ready-to-wear pieces.

Moving through the racks in personal-shopper mode, Wang keeps track of all the recent purchases by his celebrity friends: He motions to a Jil Sander workwear jacket that was purchased by Han Hong, the famous Chinese folk singer; a rack of Jacquemus dresses snatched up by Baobao Wan, the Chinese jewelry designer and socialite, and a delicate By Walid jacket that went into the personal archive of the singer Lin Yilun and his wife.

“The Shanghai brand list is meant to feel more fashion-forward and all-encompassing. In Beijing, our clientele is more conservative, which echoes the overall atmosphere in Beijing. In Shenzhen, brands like Ann Dem[eulemeester] or Casey Casey would feel out of reach for the office-dwelling crowd; everyone in Shenzhen feels obliged to fit in,” Wang said.

However, certain brands performs well across the board, with Lemaire, The Row, Our Legacy and Dries Van Noten taking the lead.

Wang credits the enduring popularity of Lemaire, in particular its omnipresent Croissant Bag, to an obsession with “looking chill and relaxed.”

“The curvature of the bag hugs your body perfectly, it’s a memorable shape, it’s easy to style…it exists within a visual identity full of subtle Chinese elements, which means the customer feels right at home,” Wang said.

The attic space.

“People are simply obsessed with Sarah-Linh Tran,” Wang continued. “Maybe because she’s Asian as well, so her interpretation of Asian culture feels more powerful,” he added.

In an adjacent villa, Dongliang is currently hosting an exhibition titled “Dongliang Craft Atelier,” which includes the works of seven young Chinese artisans. The exhibition is a part of Dongliang’s nascent initiative to spotlight young Chinese artisans, or “discovering the Lucie Ries of China,” according to Wang.

Inside the “Dongliang Craft Atelier” exhibition.Courtesy

“I often feel like that Chinese fashion went through a stage of utter destruction; its development was interrupted for over 10 years, but Chinese craftsmanship never had to go through that. There was a period where the Chinese thought that our own pottery looked cheap, but things have changed because of the post-90s generation. They are so proud of their ancestor’s creations. They want to inherit the work and create new things out of it,” Wang said.

“We may not be as influential as the Loewe Foundation; we are still a relatively small store, but what we can discover more local craftspeople, support their works, and even help them form a partnerships with leading global brands,” Wang continued.