Palace Museum pop-up store looks to promote culture

Source
CGTN.COM
Editor
Ouyang
Time
2018-02-05


A pop-up store featuring creative souvenirs from the Palace Museum opened in Beijing’s Sanlitun shopping area earlier this week, aiming to promote traditional Chinese culture.

Inside the modern building, the vivid red and yellow shop catches the eye. Snacks, jewelry, stationery, accessories as well as books are on sale in the temporary store, which will run until March 4 to celebrate the upcoming Spring Festival.

The Palace Museum has released a number of hit products with cute characters and modern slang in recent years, which can also be found at the store. For example, visitors can scan a QR code featuring an emperor that says, "There is always a beloved subordinate that wants my WeChat account," as well as mugs saying, “I really don’t know how to care about you.”

Flash retailing, or pop-up retail, originated in early 2000s in the US as an effective way to test the market and make campaigns at a relatively low cost. Store owner Chen Weiguo told Beijing Daily that the pop-up shop is designed to appeal to the young generation and promote culture.

Meanwhile, Max Yu, general manager of Taikoo Li Sanlitun, told Beijing Business Daily that “the opening of the store combines a fashion icon and historic site, a good experiment in upgrading and transforming commercial property to have cross-over cooperation with culture, amid the background that there is a huge consumption revolution among the rising post-1980s and 1990s.”

Shan Jixiang, curator of the Palace Museum said, "We cannot promote the Museum to the public with an unchanged and serious look. We must use a youthful approach to attract the young people."

The Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, has been a pioneer in designing creative cultural products and embracing the digital world during the past few years , including opening online stores and holding digital exhibitions, to make traditional culture more accessible to the public.

 

 

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