To celebrate the launch of its new Bleu de Chanel L’Exclusif scent in China, Chanel has unveiled a pop-up at Shanghai‘s Hengfu Historical Area.

Located within the Hengshan 8 Hub, the space is drenched in surreal David Lynch-esque blue and provides an immersive experience that walks the viewer through the making of the perfume. It will run until Aug. 24, with free entry.

Guests can make an appointment on the brand’s WeChat Mini Program.

As Chanel Beauty‘s first public-facing branding event this year, the activation is timed to coincide with China’s upcoming Qixi Valentine’s Day holiday, a key festival as well as a high-demand moment for the local Chinese market.

For this year’s Qixi, Chanel Beauty dreamt up a stop-motion animation featuring an embroidery-filled magpie, seen as an auspicious figure that helped form a bridge between heaven and earth so the star-crossed Qixi lovers could meet. The campaign’s WeChat Mini Program version features an Easter egg in the form of a perfume sample, which can be picked up at a local store.

To fete the launch of the new fragrance, Chanel organized a mini concert at the nearby jazz bar JZ Club last Thursday.

Eric Chou, a Taiwanese pop singer, and James Li, a Shanghainese singer-songwriter, delivered a soulful performance to a full house of media guests, influencers, and celebrities.

Guests in attendance include its brand ambassadors — Chinese idol Wang Yibo, Chinese actor Jing Boran, and singer and actress Leah Dou — as well as Chinese singer Akini Jing, Chinese reality talent show singer Shan Yichun and Veegee Xu.

During the weekend, Chanel partnered with NetEase Cloud Music, China’s leading online music streaming platform, on a performance series titled “Listen To Bleu,” which not only creates a multisensory hook around the woody men’s juice, but broadens its consumer reach.

According to Euromonitor, Asia’s fragrance market is slated to expand 31 percent in market size within the next five years. In China, Chanel has maintained a top-three brand position between 2020 and 2024.

However, facing an overall market slowdown, fashion and beauty brands have largely scaled-back on large format, high-voltage events in favor of clienteling efforts that can directly translate into sales.

Yet with the rise of lower-tiered markets — Guangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, Hangzhou and Wuhan became the fastest growing cities in terms of retail sales for the first half of 2025 — a reasonable amount of budget is still allocated to retail-adjacent events in these regional markets.

This March, Chanel’s Rouge Coco Playground pop-up, which was first unveiled in London, made its way to the legacy luxury mall Hangzhou Tower.

Hangzhou, a tech hub that’s home to Alibaba and DeepSeek, counts three malls that has surpassed the 10 billion renminbi mark, or $1.39 billion, in recent years, including Hangzhou Tower, Hangzhou MixC, and Hubin Yintai In77.

According to Hangzhou Tower, sales at its Chanel store reached 1.8 billion renminbi, or around $250 million in 2022.