Jordan Taylor, host of Travellight and youtube star, featured Jane and Pawnstar in her Magnificent Shanghai youtube video. Here is a link to the full video.
Pawnstar Vintage Shirt
Shana is a Canadian model in Shanghai off-and-on and she is wearing a vintage shirt just purchased at Pawnstar.
Jane in SCMP
Pawnstar founder Jane Jia (Jia Wenting) is featured prominently in this South China Morning Post article that went online and print on Monday May 7. The article linked here is by long-time fashion editor and influencer Jing Zhang.
On Fuxing Road
On Fuxing Road here in Shanghai are these two students who just came into Pawnstar to shop.
The Devil Wears Zara
I’m delighted that my friend and frequent Pawnstar client Juliette Gustavsson is hosting “The Devil Wears Zara” at Pawnstar. This was the title for a paper that she wrote about the sustainability and fast fashion. It could have been H&M, Forever 21, or C&A but Zara sounds better in the title. The quality and design of Zara is quite variable but they often do come out with some very nice pieces.
Juliette founded Mrs. Jet-Set, which offers luxury shopping tours here in Shanghai.
Bag Lady
Pawnstar has a lot of fun bags!
Wang Zi at Pawnstar
Wang Zi is a stylist that works with Pawnstar on some projects and also consigns with us. He is of Mongolian descent and from Inner Mongolia originally. He used to be a doctor but is now in fashion, which I think makes more sense in the Chinese context than it might elsewhere.
Vestiaire Collective Enters China
Vestiaire Collective is entering China following three years of fast growth in Europe and the US. The question for Pawnstar will be how we collaborate or compete. Olivier Marcheteau, Vestiaire Collective’s COO made the following statement that was part of this piece on digiday:
“In China, it’s critical that we establish the brand DNA in the right way. There’s major opportunity: low competition, a growing market, and young luxury customers. We’re an entry point for luxury. We’re investing in this customer because that’s the magic of a global network. If you can open up the closets of luxury shoppers all over the world, you’re going to win.â€
This Paris-based c-to-c secondhand luxury market with a twist offers an authentication process and sits on USD 130 million in funding. It is the main global competitor for San Francisco-based realreal.com, which has USD 40 million earmarked for expansion in Australia, Canada and Hong Kong. With six million members in 47 countries, Vestiaire will be bringing a huge body of overseas product from which Chinese users can select, though they will have to deal with shipping and customs costs in that case. The main priorities for Vestiaire will be “onboarding Chinese sellers, office in Hong Kong, opening a logistics hub in China, both of which the company plans to complete by early 2018.”
Here’s a cool photoshoot they did with a blogger in Hong Kong.
Transformers of the City Shanghai
Photos from the Transformers of the City - a sort of Shanghai answer to Tedx - last week at Dahlia!
My speech included a short video and then a simple presentation of my ideas on challenges and potential opportunities for secondhand in China.
Pawnstar In South China Morning Post
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post is the “paper of note” in the English language for the Greater China region. Pawnstar was recently featured in this article on the development of secondhand in China by Robynne Tindall.
Vintage Céline Pop-up
Pawnstar is happy to be hosting a vintage Céline pop-up shop focused on bags. It will start Friday (3/19) and be held in our shop at the intersection of Fenyang and Fuxing Roads. The focus will be on bags from the 1980s and 1990s and they were typically sourced in Japan.
If you are male, this is a great opportunity to get your lady a beautiful bag that none of her friends have!
Click below to see some of the bags that we will have on offer.
Mogujie Live-Streaming
Mogujie Live-Streaming has become one of the main sources of revenue and users for Pawnstar. Pawnstar founder Jane Jia is now a minor celebrity on the platform and she live-streams every day in 45 minute segments, each focused on a particular type of items like coats, menswear, unisex, etc. Hangzhou-based Mogujie (more here) focuses on selling low-cost womenswear to its 130 million users.
Garment District Pop-up at Pawnstar
The Garment District Pop-up at Pawnstar brings some very unique items from the legendary Cambridge Massachusetts “alternative department store†to the middle of Shanghai’s French Concession. With the curation of items for this pop-up, Pawnstar sought both to present styles previously unavailable in Shanghai and to capture or express a bit of the current zeitgeist. Designers have been reinterpreting the ’80s for quite a few seasons and this spirit can be observed on many of the hipper dressers on the streets of Shanghai. We are hoping that this pop-up will give our customers a chance to reflect on the origins of some of the trends that one sees popping up on runways.
The Garment District has a special for me because I grew up around Cambridge and, more importantly, a dear friend, Prof. Christopher Leighton (now in contemporary Chinese history at MIT), introduced me to the shop when I was 15, on a colorful, rambunctious, expedition into the city.
Here’s more from on the pop-up from our favorite Time Out editor, Sebastian Morgan.
Click below to read more about the history of the Garment District.