What Are the New Changes in the Fashion Industry?

In the first half of 2025, fashion brands began a fierce battle for dominance in the offline market. On one hand, fast fashion brands like Uniqlo, ZARA, and H&M are occupying prime locations in core city “golden shopping districts,” upgrading their strategic focus in the Chinese market. On the other hand, Korean wave brands are making a strong comeback in China, with Korean fashion label Rockfish Weatherwear—known for its “ballet rain boots”—American retro-inspired emis, and gender-neutral brand Rest&Recreation aggressively expanding in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Hangzhou. According to incomplete statistics from Linkshop, over ten Korean fashion brands have entered the Chinese market in 2025, targeting core commercial areas in first-tier cities. Even Anta Sports, a brand previously focused on sportswear, has entered the fashion space, acquiring approximately 1.7% of the shares of the Korean fashion e-commerce platform MUSINSA for 50 billion KRW (approximately 260 million RMB). Anta plans to open MUSINSA Standard’s first store in China at Shanghai Huaihai Baisheng in the second half of this year.Behind the acceleration of fashion brands’ offline expansion, shopping malls are also presented with new opportunities. These core city landmarks have a natural flow of customers that can help brands quickly establish their image, secure a foothold, and enhance their influence. On the other hand, the influx of new brands and the upgrading of strategies by established players have opened new ideas for shopping malls in terms of tenant recruitment and operations.

But how do malls, being the closest “person” to brands and consumers, perceive, support, and even help brands grow? And how has the brand strategy upgrade brought about new changes in malls? With these questions in mind, we spoke with department stores to explore the new stories unfolding in the fashion industry.Fashion brands have changed their approach. Let’s turn the clock back to April 1, 2025. On this day, FMG Group, the parent company of fast fashion brand Urban Revivo, launched a brand-new label, “OF,” in a soft opening in Guangzhou. OF focuses on minimalist design and high cost-performance, and it also introduced a paid membership system for the first time. With this launch, FMG Group now owns three brands: Urban Revivo, the casual wear label “Benlai,” and membership-based OF, creating a brand matrix aimed at reaching a wider consumer base. Multi-brand strategies have become one of the most common methods for fashion groups to expand their customer reach. The underlying logic is to capture segmented market demands through brands with different positioning, creating new growth opportunities for the group.Taking OF as an example, compared to Urban Revivo, it offers more competitive prices, targets younger and more price-sensitive consumers, similar to the complementary relationship between Uniqlo and GU under Fast Retailing Group. In other words, OF aims to serve consumers who are more sensitive to Urban Revivo’s prices.

Unlike FMG’s “new brand” approach, more brands are opting to refresh their image through flagship stores. Domestic brands like Youngor, Peacebird, Yaying, and Koradior are also strengthening their experience and services through large stores and newly designed flagship stores. These moves aim to gain customer recognition and to open new avenues for brand retail.Fashion brands are beginning to mirror the approach of “luxury brands.” In addition to clothing, products like coffee, floral arrangements, and exhibition spaces are increasingly integrated into flagship stores, turning the store into an effective extension of lifestyle and attitude. Building flagship stores represents the latest development concept and strategic direction of a brand. To some extent, it reflects the “ceiling” of the brand’s current potential. However, flagship stores come with higher demands for size and location, so most brands still operate in department stores. The question is, how can these “regular” stores gain a foothold?Only top-tier brands can secure the opportunity to open large stores. The competition in the fashion industry is intense, and this is widely acknowledged across the industry. If we focus on the physical space within a single shopping mall, the battle for “prime retail space” becomes even more intense. Especially in the special context of department stores, sales per square meter (known as “坪效”) is the key metric for assessing the value of space, and premium locations with built-in foot traffic are scarce resources.

In this environment, only top-tier brands with strong market appeal and operational capabilities can break through the mall’s stringent selection process to win the right to open large stores.A case in point is the renovation at Xi’an Bell Tower Kaoyuan Mall in late September 2023. A leading women’s fashion brand’s high-end experience store was unveiled in a space that previously housed six brands. According to Han Xiaomei, the mall’s representative, after the store upgrade, the brand’s performance increased by 1.5 times. This performance boost is not just a win for the brand and the mall, but also reflects the brand’s ability to integrate resources, create compelling customer experiences, and unlock value in the operation of large stores.This “win-win” situation is a result of joint efforts and precise strategies by both the brand and the mall. For the brand, aligning the large store’s positioning with the space’s value meant a full commitment to resources. On one hand, the brand introduced an extensive product matrix, displaying everything from mainline apparel to high-end evening dresses, creating a product combination that covered diverse consumer scenarios—a move only large groups with sufficient product lines could afford. On the other hand, the brand allocated top-notch sales teams and redefined the traditional store model by creating an “experience center” that spans products, services, and space, forming a comprehensive high-end experience cycle. In terms of service, the brand integrated “emotional value” throughout the entire customer journey, enhancing the exclusive feel for VIP customers by setting up private service areas.

Beyond standard coffee services, the store also provided customized services like bird’s nest soup—catering to Chinese wellness trends—and offered seven-seat business car transportation.From the mall’s perspective, allocating prime space to flagship stores of top brands is essentially about maximizing “sales per square meter” and “traffic attraction.” Top-tier brands naturally attract foot traffic, and the large-store model with experiential spaces and a full product range can further improve customer conversion rates and average transaction value, ultimately boosting the mall’s overall profitability.This “deep integration of brand strength and mall resources” is emerging as the new competitive logic in department store fashion sectors.How do malls help brands grow? Unlike the rent-based model of shopping centers, department stores are more deeply involved in daily brand operations. “For a mall, bringing a brand in only completes 10% of the work; 90% is about the ongoing operations,” says Han Xiaomei. This 90% of operational work primarily focuses on solving a core question: how can malls help brands grow?Yintai Department Store summarizes this operational logic as “widening the front end, narrowing the dimensions.” “Widening the front end” refers to efforts in driving traffic, investment, and marketing, while “narrowing the dimensions” emphasizes precisely converting foot traffic into effective customer visits at brand counters.Han Xiaomei explains, “Yintai is very willing to invest in front-end marketing and traffic, but more importantly, we focus on turning general traffic into effective traffic in front of the brand counters—this is key.”

“Narrowing the dimensions” is not simply about shrinking the scope but rather leveraging customer data to conduct “targeted invitations” and help brands reach new customers. In practice, Xi’an Bell Tower Kaoyuan Mall segmented the customer base, offering customized holiday gift packages for tourists, teachers, and healthcare professionals, introducing high-quality customers to brands. The mall also promoted brand collaborations within the space, such as facilitating cross-category partnerships like men’s fashion with SK-II and women’s fashion with Estée Lauder during the Qixi Festival to create membership synergy.For emerging brands with weak market visibility, Yintai helps them rapidly establish a presence among consumers through tailored launch plans and resource integration. During key marketing events, Yintai’s strategy shifts from “narrow” to “wide” by organizing IP-level events to enhance brand visibility and overall exposure. For instance, on September 27, the first stop of Yintai’s Fashion Week in Ningbo featured domestic brands such as LESS, JNBY, ERDOS, and JORYA, showcasing their 2025 autumn/winter collections through runway shows. The event helped enhance the brands’ visibility and drive store traffic. This meticulous operation has paid off, with brands such as VIZAVIZA, Rhine, TEENIE WEENIE, and others achieving “national sales leaders” in stores like Hangzhou Wulin Yintai and Ningbo Tianyi Yintai.