YSL at Grey Warehouse Art Center — YSL Beauty Zone Shanghai (2021)

A converted industrial art centre on Shanghai's Yangpu riverside hosted YSL Beauty's two-day zone of makeup, music and gaming.

The venue

Grey Warehouse Art Center occupies a former industrial structure on the Yangpu Riverside in Shanghai, part of the Yangshupu power plant complex. The building retains its raw concrete shell, tall ceilings and large open floor plates, and now operates as an exhibition and events venue rather than a retail address. Its setting is a waterfront stretch of converted factories and promenades, reached on foot or by car rather than through a shopping district.

How the space was used

For the YSL Beauty Zone the venue's interior and exterior were both used: display structures were placed outside the building, while the interior held staged rooms for makeup, gaming and dance. A queue formed along the approach. Across two days the programme ran from daytime walkthroughs into evening sets by invited musicians, with appearances by invited guests drawing crowds. The layout moved visitors between zones rather than through a single retail floor.

Why it works here

Industrial art centres of this type give brand projects volume, rawness and acoustic tolerance that malls and showrooms cannot. The high shell absorbs lighting and set builds, the waterfront location reads as a destination rather than a shop, and the venue's existing cultural programming makes music, performance and audience crowding plausible within it.