ENG Shanghai: Minority Report-inspired retail for the Gen Z mind
ENG Shanghai opens its second luxury fashion concept store aimed at Gen Z customers, inside the city’s TX Mall, featuring artworks by Carlos Saez, robotic arms and cyborg-like mannequins

‘We wanted to create a retail experience which transported people forwards into time, where reality and science collide,’ says Sherry Huang, owner of experiential Shanghai-based luxury boutique ENG, which has opened its second outpost in Shanghai's TX Mall, a sprawling six-floor space that has the technologically savvy, experientially inclined Gen Z shopper in mind. ‘This gave birth to a strong sci-fi vision, referencing influences including Zaha Hadid for curves and shapes, Oscar Niemeyer for furniture installations, and also iconic science fiction classics like Gattaca, Minority Report and Westworld.’
‘We kept coming back to the “all-round” aspect of interiors in this sci-fi concept, a world where every surface in all dimensions is utilised in the absence of gravity drawing everything to the ground,’ adds Huang of ENG's second multi-brand concept store, a space that houses labels including Ottolinger, Martine Rose, Helmut Lang and Telfar. Its futuristic folds and metallic fixtures and fittings are interspersed with robotic arms, cyborg-like mannequins and geometric strips of lighting. Since ENG's inception in 2019, the boutique has focused on immersive retail, bridging cultural gaps between fashion, art and music, and stimulating the senses with holographic projections, vending machines and installations. It is also expanding the online domestic retail operations it runs through WeChat, and launching a global e-commerce platform.
Enter the futuristic world of ENG Shanghai
Shanghai’s TX Mall and its ENG outpost aim to bridge the gap between bricks-and-mortar and digital retail experiences. ‘Generally speaking, the young generation is more concerned with the cultural interpretation behind the clothes instead of the clothes themselves,’ Huang says, emphasising her decision to locate the new store within a leisure- and entertaintment-focused mall environment, and to dedicate 50 per cent of its floor space to ‘creative endeavours' that are not fashion focused. This is a consumer trend in luxury that we see not only in China but echoed around the world’s international markets, she adds.
One result of such a trend is ENG's collaboration with Valencia-born artist Carlos Saez, whose work has been exhibited at MoMA and The Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), The National Portrait Gallery (London) and La Termica, Las Naves and Espai Tactel (Spain). The collaboration comprises a series of art pieces resembling robotic arachnids, which will be exhibited at the new ENG until September 2021. ‘Saez’s work uniquely explores the relationships between the human and technology. We were immediately drawn to the synergy between this and our own vision and philosophy around this topic, and the common ground in bringing to fore the aesthetic of machinery and mechanisation,’ Huang says.
‘By building all-round fashion content in three-dimensions, the space encourages our customers to change their perspective and see things differently,' she adds. ‘This physically embodies what is at the heart of ENG.’
INFORMATION
523 Huaihai Zhong Lu
near Yandang Lu
Huangpu District
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
Y.Z. Kami's meditative, architecturally-inspired Domes take over Gagosian Beverly Hills
A collection of Kami's Dome and Messenger paintings are currently united at Gagosian Beverly Hills
-
Bees can now check in at Kew’s new pollinator hotel
At Wakehurst, Kew’s wild botanic garden, artist Kristina Pulejkova unveils four functional sculptures that tell the hidden story of seeds and act as a refuge for bees during the heat of summer
-
Andu Masebo and The Singleton’s bespoke furniture celebrates the beauty in slow craft
British designer Andu Masebo collaborates with single malt Scotch whisky The Singleton on a multifunctional furniture piece boasting minimal design codes
-
Nick Waplington photographs architect Joseph Grima for Stone Island’s ‘research project’
Marking the latest Stone Island Ghost collection, Joseph Grima is photographed by Nick Waplington against the backdrop of Oscar Niemeyer’s 1970s-built Palazzo Mondadori in Milan
-
Bottega Veneta constructs ‘invisible' pop-up in Shanghai
Conceived by creative director Daniel Lee, the three metre-high, 100 sq m mirrored cuboid continues Bottega Veneta’s subversive denouncement of self-promotion
-
Zaha Hadid Architects designs a mobile make-up pavilion in New York City
-
Glove story: we can’t keep our hands to ourselves with Zaha Hadid’s latest collaboration
-
Top brass: Neri & Hu design Comme Moi flagship in Shanghai
-
David Chipperfield turns Valentino’s Shanghai flagship into a life-sized display case
-
Shang Xia's striking Shanghai flagship
-
’Women Fashion Power’ at London’s Design Museum explores the link between clothing and success