Valentino Debuts Alibaba Collaboration

Valentino (Milan) has collaborated with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba (Hangzhou, China) in a new pop-up shop in Beijing. The concept, called Candystud, promotes the fashion house’s new Garavani Candystud collection of leather handbags and sneakers, reports Women’s Wear Daily.

“Valentino’s simultaneous running of a physical Candystud Factory pop-up store in Beijing and online with a Pavilion Tmall Space is a perfect illustration of how luxury brands can leverage Alibaba to engage their consumers and take advantage of the new retail opportunity,” said Jessica Liu, President of Fashion and Luxury at Tmall.

The collaboration features both a physical storefront and a 3-D virtual store on Tmall Space’s Luxury Pavilion. Maison Valentino is the latest retailer to partner with Alibaba, whose high web traffic (580 million monthly active users) and extensive data-gathering capabilities are informing new online and offline retail experiences. Other brands partnered with Alibaba’s Luxury Pavilion are Burberry, Hugo Boss, Guerlain and Maserati.