RooM1550 is a unique multi brand store for the modern man in Greater China – and a growing project of a group of friends all working in the fashion, traveling and art industries.
“We all use to meet in Room1550 in different hotels around China with our friend, Tony, talking about the themes we all enjoy – Fashion, Art and Traveling,” said Jana, who works on RooM1550’s social media strategy and like the others in the company’s team, goes only by a first name.
The collective decided to turn its meetings into an educational guide and tell about their favorite places, unique artists and most importantly exciting fashion through a blog.
“We believe fashion is about details and culture, we want our followers to know and understand where trends and specific articles come from to help them dress better,” said Jana.
Room1550 naturally evolved from a blog into a multi brand store.
Now RooM1550 operates only online and its products are sold via word-of-mouth among friends. The company addresses men who seek unique, fashionable clothing to suit their work and lifestyle needs.
“Using our friend Tony as inspiration to the style we wanted to promote, we went and contacted directly some of his favorite brands and started bringing them to China exclusively,” said Alexis, a buyer, RooM1550.
The Store logo, a key, is no accident. It represents the key to the world of the RooM1550’s friends, a unique key to their meetings and lives.
“We are all huge shoe fanatics and we wanted to be the first to bring a true Northampton-shire brand, Grenson (the birth-place of modern footwear) to Greater China. We are long time admirers of Grenson and were lucky to be the first to officially represent this amazing brand in Greater China, it is a huge honor for us to sell a brand with more than 140 years of heritage and know how,” said John, a Stylist with RooM1550.
This was only the beginning followed by clothing and accessories brands such as YMC (You Must Create), Cote-et-Ciel, the French brain child of Paper rain and designer Damir Doma, Libertine Libertine etc.
“Exclusivity, uniqueness and high quality are what driving us and until today we approach brands which either do not sell in China yet or are very rare in Asia. These are by all means no small brands; furthermore, we only offer a limited amount of products for sale after maintaining a triple quality check. And yes, we are very proud of the extremely low return rate,” said Alexis.
The natural next step, she says, was to create ‘total looks’.
“We started to gain a serious following in mainland China and customers requested help with building looks which will be suitable for them, and this was one of the most fun things in this project so far,” Alexis continued.
The company offers looks, outfits they carefully build and offer a 15 per cent discount to those who purchase an entire outfit.
“We are not just bringing brands, but we also select them very carefully and make sure they are sold at the same price as in its origin country. We want our customers to feel like they have just shopped on Lamb St in London, or walked through Soho in New York, or any other of the places we enjoy so much,” said Tal, who looks after marketing for RooM1550.
