Flannels X launches London Beyoncé pop-up on Oxford Street

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 30, 2023

Flannels on Tuesday opened a week-long pop-up selling merchandise from Beyonce’s Renaissance World Tour as well as limited-edition pieces from her Balmain link-up in a deal with her Parkwood Entertainment company.

The Frasers Group-owned retailer is continuing to position itself at the intersection of luxury and pop culture as part of its move to become more experiential and reach out to key shopper communities.

And this pop-up is a very high-profile sign of that, as well as being further evidence of how tour merchandise is increasingly taking in high-end product in a way that was unimaginable not so long ago.

The world tour arrives in London this week at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium while the pop-up is inside the Flannels X flagship on London’s Oxford Street. The flagship was rebranded with the X aded to the name earlier this year as part of the company’s drive to connect to Gen Z.

The store will become ‘The Renaissance Flagship’ for the week (until 5 June) with the company calling it a “full-throttle experience fêting this cultural moment”.

The façade of the store has had a Renaissance Tour-inspired makeover to ensure that the message about what’s available gets across to passers-by. And inside there are floor-to-ceiling digital displays as well as a 19-piece merchandise offer, priced from £32 up to £200. The merch is being sold for the first time outside of stadiums on the store’s transformed ground floor.

A big percentage of the Beyoncé x Balmain couture collection is on show too in a “never-before-seen exhibition” in the pop-up. It’s "the first time these extraordinary pieces have been seen publicly [and] marks the first time a Black woman has overseen the couture offering from a historic Parisian house,” we’re told.

On sale and drawing inspiration from the couture pieces are an oversized tee, dropped-shoulder hoodie and giant tote emblazoned with the collection’s moniker. These pieces debut as a world exclusive to Flannels X and will be available only for the duration of the pop-up at the flagship. 

Flannels said it’s expecting significant footfall because of the initiative.

The retailer’s CMO Beckie Stanion, said: “This spectacular project truly comes to life at the apex of everything we care about at Flannels — a perfect storm of fashion, art and music. As a business, across the past few months we’ve been celebrating iterations of self-expression, freedom, and boss energy... what a dream come true, to now welcome the icon of those ideals to our store.”