LONDON – Hermès on Thursday unveiled its second location within the provincial capital of Sichuan on the high-end luxury mall SKP Chengdu, a park-like sunken shopping complex designed by Sybarite.

A 25-minute drive from its store throughout the shopping complex Taikoo Li, the two-floor unit is situated in the guts of the Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone, a recent a part of town south of the standard city center, where luxury apartments and flashy skyscrapers are being built at a lightning speed.

Neighboring Louis Vuitton, the Hermès location at SKP Chengdu comes with a façade design that enables the shop to open towards the outside and let within the natural light, filtered by openwork panels. Product of glass and stone, the surface alternates between transparency and the darker pattern of the stone, evoking marble weaving, which is inspired by centuries-old local know-how, in accordance with the brand.

On the two entrances of the shop facing K Avenue, where all major luxury flagships are situated inside SKP Chengdu, the ground is product of terrazzo tiles in vibrant colours and includes the brand’s traditional Faubourg pattern.

The bottom floor offers men’s ready-to-wear, shoes, bags, small leather goods, and silk, in addition to equestrian accessories and homeware collections.

The back wall of the staircase, which results in the ladies’s-focused first floor, is roofed with wicker weaving, a homage to Sichuan’s traditional bamboo craftsmanship. The style jewelry corner is surrounded by a pink enameled ceramic wall in addition to beauty, and fragrances.

The private lounge comes with a special textile that was added to the stucco finish bearing traces of ginkgo colours, and the carpets are adorned with curves and flowery patterns, which add color to the beige, structured stucco partitions at the doorway.

When it comes to in-store artworks, there may be a shawl design by the Chinese artist Tong Ren, in addition to pieces from the Émile Hermès collection. The staircase area boasts illustrations of huge cats and owls by the French artist Paul Jouve.

The SKP Chengdu location is the brand’s thirty third outpost in mainland China, a region that logged a ten.2 percent growth in sales within the third quarter of 2023.

Despite high youth unemployment and the looming real estate crisis in China, Eric Du Halgouet, executive vice chairman of finance at Hermès, brushed off any talk of headwinds during a recent earnings call, viewing them as short-term issues that didn’t affect the corporate’s view that “potential for development continues to be very strong within the medium and long run.”