Runway Vietnam, a luxury and designer fashion retail concept, last week unveiled a 7,535-square-foot multi-brand store at Diamond Plaza in Ho Chi Minh City in a bid to meet the rising demand from its sophisticated loyal clientele, while attracting younger generation customers who follow global trends.
The store at the upscale masll is split into two areas, one catering to “women who value creative and original elegance,” with brands like Comme des Garçons Play, Jacquemus, The Attico, Self-Portrait, Theory, Forte Forte, Ganni, Zimmerman, Studio Nicholson, and Eenk on offer.
The other area is dedicated to younger generation consumers with a more urban and experimental brand mix including Comme Des Garçons, Junya Watanabe, Rick Owens, Off-White, Marni, Fear of God, Ambush, and Pushbutton.
Runway Vietnam store at Diamond Plaza
Courtesy of Runway Vietnam
Anh Tran, founder of Runway Vietnam, noted that “luxury today can be both exigent and laid-back, out of reach and attainable, serious and funny. It is multidirectional as next to several established labels in our new stores there are brands founded by independent third-millennium designers.”
Founded in 2008, Runway Vietnam is registered under GlobalLink Co. Ltd, the mono-brand boutique operating partner for a slew of major luxury brands in Vietnam. Besides the Diamond Plaza location, Runway Vietnam has two other stores in Ho Chi Minh City and one in Hanoi.
Runway Vietnam store at Diamond Plaza
Courtesy of Runway Vietnam
According to Tran, Vietnam’s luxury and premium fashion spending is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, even though the market remains “quite challenging” due to the widening discrepancies between online and offline retail prices.
With the new store, Runway Vietnam is looking to capture the spending rebound by bringing established and emerging designer brands and conceptual fashion to the Vietnamese market and “creating a multifaceted shopping experience where fashion and style meet arts and creativity,” added Tran.
Anh Tran, founder of Runway Vietnam, middle, with guests at the opening of the Runway Vietnam store at Diamond Plaza
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Vietnam has experienced robust growth in the luxury sector in recent years thanks to a growing middle class and a rise in the number of high-net-worth individuals.
Data from Statista showed that revenue in the Vietnamese luxury goods market is inching toward $1 billion in 2023, and is expected to grow annually by 3.2 percent in the next five years. Some 8.9 percent of the sales will be generated online sales this year.
The nation logged faster economic growth in the second quarter of 2023, driven by the services sector, which increased by 6.1 percent in the period, higher than the overall 4.1 percent GDP growth.
