Chinese beauty retailer Harmay has launched its store in Aranya, one of the tourism hotspots in Qinhuangdao, China.
The Aranya store, some 300km from Beijing, is on the ground level of a newly constructed apartment building. It does not front the main street but rather is set back in a large, inactive public plaza.
Harmay claims it enlivens the plaza with “poetic composition and rhythmic solitary pieces” that appear to have been left abandoned after being swept up on the beach. The store’s location is shown by a mirror wall, which also displays the reality of the illusion.
The wall represents the space behind where reality takes over in addition to serving as a means of interaction, marking, and attraction.
Aranya, is a resort town with a view of the Gold Coast beach, designed as an escape for China’s urban population and attracting investment from real estate corporations.
Developed by a local authority in 2013, Aranya, which means “a quiet place on earth, a place to find your true self” in Sanskrit, now attracts both domestic and foreign businesses. Louis Vuitton presented its spin-off presentation Men’s Spring 2023 in Aranya in September.
