Chinese Fashion Label Yearly Plan Taps Balenciaga Architect For Chengdu Exhibition

To inaugurate its Chengdu flagship launch, the Chinese fashion label Yearly Plan has tapped Andrea Faraguna of the Berlin-based architecture firm Sub, known for creating Balenciaga’s brutalist retail stores, and David Lê, the New York-based researcher and curator, for an exhibition centered around local craftsmanship and domestic fantasies — among other interior musings.

The exhibition, titled “The Beautiful Room Is Empty,” takes over the second floor of the stand-alone retail building within CPI Luhu Lake, which has become a trendy hangout spot since it began opening in phases last year.

The exhibition, running until July 12, is by reservation only via the brand’s WeChat customer service account.

Visiting Chengdu for the first time, Faraguna was given carte blanche to activate the space, and he decided to play with local materials such as bent wood, woven bamboo and braided rattan to create a stage-like arena that’s first unveiled to the audience via a video feed, achieving a sense of ceremony and wry social commentary at once.

Originally conceived in a more “technical and industrial” fashion, Faraguna said he ended up adding elements of Sichuan’s craft tradition after discovering a shared interest in materiality with Yang Lin, the founder of Yearly Plan.

“She [Yang Lin] showed me a photo shoot they did in a factory of rattan and bamboo, which got me super curious. Then I decided to convert this fabrication technique, or local intelligence, into something bigger. It may not be technically or structurally the best way of building, but it somehow works because it makes it more robust,” Faraguna said.

Lê, who created the scenography for the room, opened up his personal archive and filled the space with objects and artworks that are autobiographical with a tinge of true crime.

Personal artifacts, such as postcards that Lê received from friends and Faraguna’s wedding invitation, were scattered around the room, offering clues to the “crime scene” that Lê had set up. With an imposing black sofa and red carpet, the set up alludes to a David Lynchian mystery.

In one corner of the room, which a camcorder directly points at, is an image of the artist Alan Jones standing next to his Kate Moss sculpture, being held up by a bamboo stick — the image is characterized by Lê as an apt commentary on topical issues including “surveillance and fantasy in fashion.”

Artworks from Lê’s and Yang’s collection, including an etching by the German artist Richard Müller, an Art Nouveau–style Technicolor porcelain bowl, and a calligraphy work by the London-based artist Spencer Fung — a piece from Yang’s collection — are scattered throughout the space, revealing an anachronistic quality to the show.

Elements from Chengdu, such as paper tea cups given by a local taxi driver and a pot of red berry bonsai with bondage details, play with a secondary theme of the show, “the organic and inorganic at once,” according to Lê.

The duo also took advantage of local production know-how to collaborate on two new pieces of furniture, including a sofa inspired by the Klismos chairs of ancient Greece, and a stool from Egypt’s 18th Dynasty.

In three months’ time, the space will evolve into a kitchen, where another artist will take up residence, creating a new interactive program for Yearly Plan.

With a domestic storyline, the Yearly Plan exhibition is a reflection of how CPI’s village of boxy buildings — around 41 and counting — can continue to evolve.

“There’s this idea that you don’t need curvy walls to create an evolutionary, or completely different reality, so it’s a bit like taking the frame very strictly as the limits, and then playing within the frames, in both retail and real estate,” Faraguna said. “The standardized space, the volume, the box that it creates, let’s say, strict and organized frames, will generate completely different worlds,” he added.

“Whenever there are these development moments, real estate-wise, there is always an opportunity to do interesting creative work there, just because it’s undefined, and there’s financial support for it,” Lê observed.

Located south of Chengdu’s historic downtown, the CPI Luhu Lake retail complex is owned by the local real estate developer Wide Horizon and launched in 2024.

Home to more than 60 brands, the outdoor retail project counts around 60 tenants ranging from fashion retailers SND and Hug, to brands including SnowPeak, Uma Wang and more.

Yearly Plan, founded in 2018, is known for its quiet luxury approach to fashion and wardrobe-building pieces. Its name alludes to its intention for making garments to be worn year-round.

In the last two years, the brand opened two flagships in mainland China, one in Shanghai and one in Chengdu.

The first floor of its Chengdu flagship is stocked with its spring 2026 collection and ceramic goods from the Japanese artist Kazunori Hamana.