Lined with department stores, malls and flagship stores for global fashion brands, the Huaihai Road has been described as Shanghai’s answer to Fifth Avenue or the Champs Élysées. But at the street’s latest destination venue, most of the clothes are produced by small local brands using materials such as old plastic bottles and used bicycle tubes.
Stretching over 7,000sq m on eight floors in what used to be a bright pink Barbie store, HAI550 opened last month as China’s first sustainable lifestyle mall. Backed by Youngor, a Chinese fashion retailer that owns international brands such as Undefeated and Helly Hanson and holds a stake in Alexander Wang, it is targeting affluent consumers.
“Our customers are normally well educated, they have overseas experience and they love design. They respect original designs,” said Cindy Wang, who runs a shop in the mall selling sustainably produced clothes and shoes.
“All the materials are recycled. The leather is recycled. The denim is recycled from plastic bottles and the sole is made from natural rubber and wine cork.”
China’s green transition has been dramatic in recent years as massive investment in renewable energy sources has made the country a world leader in solar and wind power as well as electric vehicles. Visitors returning to the country after a few years remark on the improved air quality and quieter streets in cities where half of the cars are electric.
But as the global headquarters of fast fashion with companies like Shein and Temu, China is also one of the biggest producers of textile waste. More than 26 million tons of clothes are thrown away in China each year, much of it made from synthetic fabrics and a lot of it ending up in landfills.
The ground floor of HAI550 is reserved for pop-up stands and art exhibitions and the escalator to the other floors only goes up, to save energy. Each floor has a mixture of outlets selling locally produced perfume, fashion, jewellery, sportswear and outdoors wear as well as organic groceries.
Uoosee makes bags crafted out of the inner tubes of bicycle tyres, while art accessory brand PabePabe produces upcycled rainboots. Prices are generally higher than in the conventional fashion malls on Huaihai Road but Wang maintains that the customers at shops such as hers are looking for something different.
“Because our design is very minimal and long-lasting, we don’t have too many products. We also care about sustainable design. It’s not fashion design. The sustainability, the concept, the philosophy is also leading the design,” she said.
“It’s still new in China but because the population is huge, we definitely have our own community. It’s not for everyone. But Shanghai is definitely a good place to be.”
On the fourth floor of HAI550 this month was an exhibition of artworks around the theme of food, including paintings, photographs and ceramics. In front of the exhibits stood a wall with rows of toilet paper in different coloured wrapping, with two rolls hanging from holders for customers to handle.
This is Qtopia, a brand of sustainable toilet paper launched this month by Jeremie Thircuir, a French art curator, publisher and ceramic artist who has lived in Shanghai for 18 years. Qtopia is made entirely of bamboo, which grows quickly, is trimmed rather than cut, replenishes quickly and is plentiful in China.
“People always think toilet paper is a really mundane subject, but because it’s a commodity that everybody uses so much in really large quantities, the impact on the environment is tremendous. It’s millions of trees being torn down every week just to produce toilet paper,” Thircuir said.
“But if suddenly you can trigger a change in material for people, then you can have a really massive impact. You have around 40 per cent of the trees in the world being torn down for producing paper. Half of that is going for toilet paper. So it’s like 20 per cent of the trees.”
HAI550 offers a showcase for Qtopia but almost all its sales and marketing are online, where the product sells at a premium price. But Thircuir is hoping to build a culture around the brand, using his contacts in the art world to commission artists to design different wrappings for the toilet rolls every few months.
“The name of the brand is Qtopia in English. The Chinese name also sounds like utopia, but reads like a world without s**t, a turdless word, to be more literal. So really, the question of utopia is something very important in the world and in China, in particular. I think everybody is thinking about what kind of future we want, what kind of ideal world we want to live in,” he said.
“People want brands with more values. People want brands that have something to say, want more local brands, more local products, products that are more rooted in Chinese culture. So I think for people, it’s very, very important. So basically, the shopping malls need to be the mirror of the aspiration of the young consumer.”
[ China unleashes stimulus in bid to lift growthOpens in new window ]
China’s economic downturn since the coronavirus pandemic and a three-year property market slump has made many consumers more cost-conscious than before. One of the workers at HAI550 told me that when he was buying something himself, he thought first about the price, then about the design and only after that about the environment.
Thircuir acknowledged that China did not share in the “dialectic of sanctity” surrounding the environment in Europe and that sustainable practices had not infused with consumers. But he sees attitudes changing and he suggests that change is likely to come from the top in China as well as from below.
“On a political level, policies are being implemented for more sustainability. When you look at brands, more and more are trying to incorporate sustainable practices in their operations. More and more brands are trying to be more sustainable. A lot of young Chinese who went to study abroad also replicate or suddenly got sensibilised with ecology, global warming and all these issues,” he said.
“I find that in a political way, it’s very possible that at some point the government will say, no more plastic bags. Then there will be no more plastic bags. The scalability of measures means in a way that it’s more likely to happen on a political level than on a personal level. I believe strongly that China can implement those policies. I think the economy right now is slightly slowing down, which means that government will need to find new mechanisms to create growth. I think a lot of people agree on sustainability and sustainable products is going to be one of those vectors. So I’m pretty optimistic.”
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