US fashion designer Tory Burch has opened her new Asian flagship – in Shanghai.

A star-studded lineup of local celebrities, including actress Zhang Ziyi, (Ziyi Zhang), helped Tory launch the 9645sqft multi-storey store on the prime Nanjing Rd west in the recently commissioned Kerry Centre (the pair are pictured below).

It’s not the brand’s first store in China, rather its 10th, but it is its first in the commercial capital. While most foreign retailers hit Shanghai first, test the market, then move out into greater China, Burch’s approach was different.

“I think it’s been a long-term plan of doing it carefully and slowly and waiting for the right spots. This store is a big step for us, it’s our largest store ever and it’s going to be a very important store for us, it’s our first flagship in Asia,” Tory Burch said in an interview.

Burch faces a tough challenge in China. In the US she is well known as a hard working entrepreneur who made her designs, and brand, a success. But Chinese know little about her.

Burch sees China as a cornerstone of her international network which now accounts for about 25 per cent of her sales.