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MAPPA、瑞士水杯店及其他概念店的探店之旅 - 2026年03月18日
Pilgrimages for MAPPA, Swiss bottles & more concept stores
Four new stores landed in Shanghai recently, and the city's retail industry is doing that thing it does where it can't just open a shop without making it mean something. A British label treats tailoring like load-bearing architecture. A Japanese outdoor brand touches down on Wukang Road with the quiet confidence of someone who doesn't need to announce themselves. A Swiss bottle company that has been making drinkware since before the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) fell decides now is the moment for its global flagship. And a Japanese animation studio opens its first retail space anywhere on earth, right here, because of course it does. In Shanghai, a store is never just a store. You know this by now.
Studio Nicholson
Studio Nicholson, the British independent label that has built a following on architectural silhouettes and the kind of restraint that costs real money to achieve, has opened its first China flagship on the second floor of Reel in Jing'an. The space is designed to feel like somewhere between a gallery and someone's very tasteful apartment, which is either an inspired concept or a description of every luxury retail opening in the last five years, depending on your patience for this sort of thing. Here it mostly works.
The front of the store is bright and white and lets the clothes do the talking. Move deeper and the materials shift, organic furniture, natural textures, the whole thing softening into something that feels less like a showroom and more like a room. Two zones, one space, the transition intentional and unhurried. That's the idea, anyway.
Exterior of the Studio Nicholson storeAt 160 square meters, it fits the full men's and women's collections plus accessories, and it's where the Spring 2026 line makes its debut. The brand was founded in 2010 by Nick Wakeman, and the thing that distinguishes it, beyond the clean lines and the premium fabrics, is the fitting process: Every garment goes through at least five rounds before it's done, proportion and drape worked out on actual bodies rather than on a dress form someone decided represents humanity. Core pieces run 3,000 to 5,000 yuan (US$435.5-725.8), which is not nothing, but is also the price of clothes that have been thought about that carefully.
The Shanghai store is part of a retail concept the brand introduced during its 15th anniversary last year, when two London locations debuted the updated spatial language. Shanghai expands on that, and given that the brand's existing footprint is London, Tokyo and Seoul plus around 300 wholesale partners worldwide, the China debut landing here rather than Beijing or Chengdu is its own kind of statement. Jing'an, second floor of Reel, if you want to go look.
If you go...
Address: 2/F, Reel Department Store, 1601 Nanjing Rd W.
南京西路1601号芮欧百货二楼
Nanamica
If you follow technical fashion at all, you already know nanamica. If you don't, here's the short version: Japanese brand, founded in 2003 by Eiichiro Homma and Fujii Takayuki, Gore-Tex and Alphadry and Coolmax worked into clothes that look like they belong in a Kyoto side street rather than on a mountainside. The name means "House of the Seven Seas," which sounds like a izakaya chain but is actually a genuine statement of intent about global connection and everyday wear. Their guiding philosophy is "One Ocean, All Lands." You either find that moving or you don't, but the clothes make the argument better than the copy does.
The brand runs stores in Tokyo, Kobe, Fukuoka, Kyoto, and one in New York, which until now was its only overseas location. Shanghai is the second, and it landed on Wukang Road, which tracks. Wukang Road is where you put a store when you want a certain kind of customer to find it without having to explain yourself too much. The space carries the same logic as the clothes: subtle details, tactile materials, the indoor and outdoor distinction quietly dissolved. Most pieces sit in the thousand-plus yuan range, which for Gore-Tex construction and hidden pockets and the kind of minimalist tailoring that works on a citywalk or an actual trail is not unreasonable. The brand's whole argument is that you shouldn't have to choose between functional and considered. At 307 Wukang Road, you can go check whether they're right.
If you go...
Address: 307 Wukang Rd
武康路307号
Clothing displays and interior layout inside the storeSIGG
SIGG has been making water bottles in Frauenfeld, Switzerland since 1908, which means the brand survived two world wars, the invention of plastic, the fall of plastic's reputation, and whatever is happening right now, and came out the other side still selling drinkware. That's a real track record. To mark its 10th anniversary in the Chinese market, the brand has opened its first flagship anywhere in the world in Shanghai, at Parkson on Huaihai Road, because apparently when SIGG decides to make a statement, it makes it here.
The space is positioned as something more than a bottle shop, an immersive environment is the phrase they're using, built around Swiss craftsmanship, sustainable living and the kind of healthy lifestyle aesthetic that photographs well. The sustainability credentials are genuine enough: fully recyclable materials, sea freight over air, biodegradable packaging. For a brand that has been in the business of replacing disposable plastic bottles since before disposable plastic bottles were even a thing people worried about, this is less a pivot than a long-held position finally finding its moment.
SIGG also does co-branded bottles with the French Open and the Rolex Shanghai Masters, which is a tidy bit of positioning: serious sporting culture, environmental awareness, the kind of object you leave on your desk so people know something about you. The bottles are sold in over 40 countries. Go buy a bottle. You were going to get rid of your plastic ones eventually anyway.
If you go...
Address: 1/F, Parkson, 918 Huaihai Rd M.
淮海中路918号百盛商场1楼
Exterior of the SIGG storeMAPPA
The announcement that MAPPA was opening its first flagship store anywhere in the world, and that it was opening it in Shanghai, did something to the Chinese anime fan Internet that can only be described as a weather event. This was before the doors opened. The store itself, once it did open, had lines outside during the opening weekend, which for a retail space inside Bailian ZX on Nanjing Road E. is saying something.
MAPPA, for anyone who needs the context: Founded in 2011 by veteran producer Maruyama Masao (the name is an acronym, Maruyama Animation Produce Project Association, which is the kind of thing you name a company when you are a producer and not a branding consultant), headquartered in Suginami, Tokyo, and responsible for an output volume and hit rate that would be suspicious if the work weren't so consistently good. "Jujutsu Kaisen." Attack on Titan's final arc. "Chainsaw Man." "Yuri on Ice." "Zombie Land Saga." The range is genuinely strange, from kinetic action that rewires your nervous system to a figure skating romance to a zombie idol group comedy, and somehow the studio has a distinct identity anyway.
Inside the store, each major IP gets its own merchandise collection and photo op space, which is the right call. You don't come to a MAPPA flagship to browse. You come for a specific character, a specific show, a specific thing you have been waiting for someone to put on a physical object you can own. The fans who lined up on opening weekend understood this perfectly.
If you go...
Address: L1, Bailian ZX, 340 Nanjing Rd E.
南京东路340号百联ZX创趣场L1
Source: City News Service
