SHANGHAI — Inside the airy establishment, B1ock runs a tight edit manned by around 30 sales associates. Its window display and gallery shows are updated on a monthly basis.
If Alibaba put Hangzhou on the map as China‘s e-commerce capital, JNBY helped establish it as an emerging fashion powerhouse.
The Hong Kong-listed retailer, which operates more than 2,000 stores throughout China, has become synonymous with a distinctly Hangzhou vision of fashion and culture, one that has come to define its multibrand retail operation B1ock.
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Launched six years ago within JNBY’s concrete superblock Oōeli, B1ock spans almost 65,000 square feet across 10 stories, bringing over 300 fashion, jewelry and lifestyle brands under one roof — the retail space also doubles as a showcase for JNBY cofounder Li Lin’s contemporary art collection.
With a merchandising system designed by the American artist Theaster Gates, a small gallery tucked in its basement, and a private lounge fully occupied by The Row, B1ock has become an unexpected influential force in a market undergoing a seismic shift as consumers rethink the meaning of luxury.
“The economic crisis gives us time to slow down and think about what role we should play in the industry. For visitors who go through the hassle and take a one-hour-long train from Shanghai, that also creates a unique time and space for them to ruminate a little — about why they still care about fashion,” said Alessio Liu, cofounder of B1ock.
On the social commerce platform Xiaohongshu, a visit to B1ock is described by Chinese netizens as “an VIC experience for everyone,” ”what a freeing experience — no sales associates hovering,” and “like shopping in an art museum.”
For JNBY and B1ock, breathing new life into a venerable yet old-fashioned business model took time. It also meant continuing to update its retail layout to reframe market needs. Since 2024, former Jean Nouvel architect Maxime Laurent has been tasked with custom-designing its monthly window display and in-store display systems. As the luxury market indulges in investment-grade gold jewelry, B1ock began displaying delicate gold pieces alongside Alaïa’s hottest designs. Last year, a 1,700-square-foot private lounge opened on its top floor, which has now become a shop-in-shop for The Row. For a more discerning crowd, its basement gallery has a steady run of exclusive exhibitions on view.
B1ock joins myriad local multibrand chain stores, including Labelhood, Dong Liang and SND, in its continued exploration of multibrand retail’s future in the market as foreign players slowly retreat from key cities.
Unlike its peers, B1ock’s identity is not anchored to a particular category or demographic. While Labelhood champions Chinese designers, Dong Liang is associated with a distinctly ’90s cool-girl aesthetic, and SND built its reputation on streetwear, B1ock has positioned itself as a curator of an artistic lifestyle — “To Buy Is to Create,” as the work of Chinese conceptual artist Wu Shanzhuan announced itself in its shop windows.
After B1ock was incorporated into the JNBY parent company two years ago, B1ock also began to adopt JNBY’s robust client management system. A model inspired by the art world’s carefully managed patronage system, the client management program is dubbed the “JNBY fan economy,” which began in earnest in 2019. By 2025, its growing network of fans — active users who spend around 14,000 renminbi, or about $2,100 annually — accounted for roughly 60 percent of total offline sales, helping the group achieve 6 percent revenue growth and reach 5.5 billion renminbi ($819 million) in fiscal 2025 sales.
However, in the multibrand space, as Chinese consumers tend to gravitate toward similar brands — The Row, Lemaire, and Khaite for women’s, Brunello Cucinelli for men’s — it’s up to the retailers to refresh product lineups that defy consumer expectation. “If you are only selling bags, how can you differentiate yourself from a daigou [surrogate shopper] on WeChat? Another thing is, bag shoppers have no loyalty,” Liu explained.
With its proprietary clienteling software, B1ock is able to funnel shopfloor feedback, e-commerce data, and post-sales services into an AI-empowered system that shapes a detailed customer profile, which supports one-on-one clienteling efforts.
“By leveraging the digital systems and AI technology, we can reduce inaccuracies in analyzing customer behavior, consumer profiles, and information provided to the sales team, while working in coordination with the key account operations team to establish connections with customers through various events and activities on-site, thereby further enhancing a personalized experience,” said Liu.
“CRM [customer relationship management] today means achieving retention across your entire consumer base. Based on a tiered clienteling system, you are able to help customers understand and align with the brand’s values, also provide them with additional services, such as meaningful client experiences,” said Liu, pointing to exclusive access to exhibitions and programming at JNBY’s By Art Matters Art Museum, customized artwork created by exhibited artists, and more practically, discounts on full-price items and early access to drops at B1ock.
“It’s also about reacting quickly to real consumer needs,” added Liu, who revealed that B1ock is working with Astier de Villatte, the French home goods brand, on a water bar project for its fourth floor and a private lounge for key clients on the eighth floor — which will import vintage whisky from Japan and niche wines from Italy. Furthermore, a tailoring section will soon launch on the seventh floor for young shoppers ready to graduate from streetwear and enter the realm of the seriously charming, at times nerdy, world of bespoke fashion.
“Chinese men are beginning to take ownership of their appearance, but their aesthetic sensibility is still developing,” said Liu. “Stylized sportswear — Arc’Teryx, Descente, Goldwin — serves as an entry point; it’s functional, it signals taste without demanding too much commitment. The more considered labels follow naturally from there,” said Liu, who is working with Japanese labels such as Taiga Takahashi and A.presse on exclusive corners at B1ock.
“Japan’s menswear market has become our north star — the diversity there is unmatched, and it took decades for them to refine, obviously — but we have the audience here, the younger generation has been shaped by streetwear and hype culture, and that education will inevitably gravitate towards new luxury; it’s not a question of if, but when,” Liu said.
As the luxury market adjusts to consumers’ shifting value proposition, Liu also revealed how the company plans to unleash the spending power of the middle class.
“They might be the reason why fashion e-commerce has such high return rates, but they are our biggest consumer group. We have 100,000 of these users in our database,” said Liu.
“The key is to give them a little nudge to move up a tier. It’s about helping them feel like they want to progress,” said Liu. “It’s also about tailoring that individualized levitation based on backend data analysis. Our key account managers will step in to provide one-on-one relationship management for these clients — working in tandem with the sales team to help guide them toward that sense of moving up the ladder.”
“When they do move up, they will be able to unlock an experience more suitable than one provided by luxury brands — I question whether luxury brands have figured out a way to take care of customers here. We are not hosting glamour-stimulating gala dinners with celebrities — and flaunting it — because what we are really selling is something even more emotionally charged. We want to match that by quietly taking care of their emotional needs, be it their growing interest in contemporary art or their hard day at work. To some extent, we also want our clients’ other family members to feel served,” explained Liu.
Last month, when Louis Vuitton’s design team embarked on their annual China trip in Beijing and Shanghai, the team also made a detour to Hangzhou to visit B1ock. “They wanted to look at our livestreaming room,” said Liu.
As a brand in its own right, B1ock also helped JNBY access new retail channels. B1ock Select Store, its small-format unit, has become a positional tenant at Plaza 66, the landmark luxury mall in Shanghai.
Next year, it will launch at the expanded Plaza 66 pavilion, taking over a 7,500-square-foot retail space to flex its art and design muscle. Elsewhere, B1ock helped broker Khaite’s first China pop-up at the shopping mall’s airy atrium, and is in the works to open two Select Stores in Hangzhou downtown, one at Hang Lung’s new project Westlake 66. and one at Hangzhou MixC.
Outside of Hangzhou and Shanghai, Pocket by B1ock occupies the third floor of Gentle Monster’s Haus Nowhere experimental retail project in Shenzhen; it also counts select shops in Chengdu, Shenyang, and Aranya, a resort town near Beijing.
The quickly expanding multibrand retailer is looking to partner with Western labels to expand in China by embedding digital play within its brick-and-mortar experience. It is currently in talks to become an exclusive retail partner for Ann Demeulemeester, as well as a series of Japanese perfume and skin care brands.
“Brands like Khaite and The Row have the ability to compete with legacy luxury brands in the Chinese market, the only missing part is their retail and client management system,” said Liu of B1ock’s brand-facing service pitch.
“All of our B1ock members’ data — and specifically the data tied to your brand, where we can clearly see a customer’s affinity or loyalty to you — can be made available to brand partners under an exclusive arrangement. Once the brand moves into a shopping mall, we can take our existing infrastructure and build a customized version for them to use as their own standalone CRM system,” said Liu.
“B1ock has the mission to help JNBY become an international platform. A part of that might be helping JNBY brands reach a more global audience by forging collaborations with a global artistic community. Another part of ‘going global’ is to change the way Western brands perceive the Chinese market, and make the right connections with the relevant consumer base,” Liu said.
