LONDON — Hermès on Monday unveiled the renovated and expanded store in The Peninsula Beijing, the location of the brand’s first store in mainland China, which opened in 1997.

Almost doubling its original size, the brand new store offers a more spacious and welcoming environment for patrons to explore the brand’s full range of products, from the silk collections, fashion jewelry and sweetness, to leather goods, women’s and men’s fashion, equestrian and tremendous jewelry and watches.

The brand new space comes with a particular facade, designed by the Parisian architecture agency RDAI, made with wood diamond-shaped tiles arranged in a way that resembles the scales of the dragon statues within the nearby Forbidden City. While the grey stone of the temples of the imperial palace served as a source of inspiration for the shop floors.

On the partitions, the shop contains a photograph by Raphaëlle Peria entitled “Le marché aux oiseaux,” which serves as a nod to the importance of birds in Chinese culture, in addition to the drawing of the carré Astrologie Astronomie by Hermès longtime collaborator Gianpaolo Pagni, echoing the nice and cozy color palette of the shop.

The Parisian brand said the redesign is “a testament to the home’s long-standing history and confidence within the Chinese market and its dynamic capital city.”

With 27 stores, China was a key driver behind the brand’s robust performance in 2022, and the market continued its celebratory rebound with strong spending over the Chinese Latest Yr holiday in the primary quarter of 2023, when Hermès sales rose 23 percent to three.38 billion euros.

China’s craze for Hermès bags might be seen throughout the latest edition of Art Basel Hong Kong, and the recent Sotheby’s auction of Hong Kong property tycoon Joseph Lau’s rare Hermès bags, which sold for greater than $3 million.

Hermès has been upping its output to fulfill demand, aiming for a 7 percent increase this yr. A factory in Louviers, France, opened on April 7 and is specializing in increasing production of the favored bags. One other factory within the Eastern region of France is slated for a May opening, and three others are under construction, resulting from roll out over the subsequent two years.

Over the weekend, Hermès hosted a preview for its VIPs with rare bags and high jewelry on offer, based on social media posts on Xiaohongshu.

It was followed by a banquet on the Guardian Art Center with attendees including Bertrand Lortholary, French ambassador to China, Cameron Cundle, general manager at The Peninsula Beijing, and Weiming Cao, Greater China president at Hermès.

In Beijing, Hermès operates three stores downtown, with the opposite two in China World Mall and SKP, in addition to two airport locations.

The Peninsula Beijing is widely considered the birthplace of luxury retail in mainland China. Louis Vuitton opened its first mainland store there in 1992, and the remaining soon followed.

While several other major luxury retail players have risen over time in Beijing, many top brands selected to stick with the hotel, reminiscent of Chanel, Giorgio Armani, Graff, Harry Winston, Jenny Packham and Shiatzy Chen.

Hermès has been upgrading and upsizing its stores in China to higher cater to the fast-growing demand. The brand was said to have brought in no less than 19 million renminbi, or $2.7 million, in sales on the reopening day of its flagship store in Guangzhou’s Taikoo Hui, at the start of the pandemic in April 2020.

The brand’s Wuhan store at the town’s mega luxury shopping center Heartland 66 last yr, meanwhile, reportedly raked in around 30 million renminbi, or $4.45 million, on opening day, based on users on Xiaohongshu. The 2-floor store replaced the previous Wuhan location at Wuhan International Plaza opened in 2012.

In January, the brand celebrated the reopening of its Nanjing store inside Deji Plaza with an auspicious ceremony featuring a Taoist priest, wearing a yellow robe and a conventional headpiece, reciting specific passages while holding burning incense, then kneeling before a table filled with auspicious offerings to worship the god of wealth. The extensive ritual was widely discussed by Chinese netizens online.