Moynat Turns Paper Into a Garden at SKP Beijing
Moynat, the French leather-goods house founded in 1849, has opened a "Folding Paper Garden" pop-up inside SKP Beijing, one of the Chinese capital's top luxury shopping destinations. The installation opened on August 28 and runs through September 19 in the mall's first-floor atrium. WWD
The house imagined the space with Chinese artist Jojo, whose real name is Sui Yuan. Born in Qingdao and based in Beijing, Jojo is a graduate of the Oil Painting Department at Capital Normal University and is known for work that spans painting, sculpture and paper art. For Moynat, she used folded paper to evoke the house's archival trunks and created a lightly pixelated version of the Moynat monogram — the house's repeating logo pattern — that runs through the installation. WWD
Inside Jojo's graphic garden of folds and layers, the pop-up displays Moynat's M collection in a dark grey canvas developed exclusively for SKP Beijing. The range covers a broad set of silhouettes: the Hobo and Mini Hobo styles, totes in three sizes, the 48H and Mini 48H travel bags, trunks, and the newly introduced Moon Bag. Small leather goods — passport holders, cardholders and bag charms — round out the offering. The Hobo Bag was introduced as the latest addition to the M collection at the time of the pop-up. WWD
This is not Moynat's first artist collaboration, nor its first move in the Chinese market. The house has previously worked with Japanese artists Kazumasa Naga and Kasing Lung, the latter being the creator of the Labubu character. Moynat also collaborated with Chinese stylist Lucia Liu and ran a local "520" campaign — 520, pronounced "wǔèrlíng" in Mandarin, sounds close to "I love you" and has become a de facto Valentine's Day on the Chinese commercial calendar — featuring two dogs named Tan Xiaodai and Tan Liliu, owned by actor Tan Jianci. WWD
For a house whose identity is built on trunk-making — Moynat began as a Parisian trunk maker before automobiles replaced railways as the primary mode of long-distance travel — the choice to have an artist reinterpret those archival forms in folded paper is a direct line from the brand's past to its current retail strategy. The Beijing pop-up follows a similar M collection pop-up at Isetan Shinjuku in Tokyo in June, held to celebrate the launch of the colour canvas line. WWD
The SKP Beijing run closes on September 19.
