Six months ago, Lululemon's China business looked like the cleanest premium-import story of 2025: comparable sales surging in the +30s, US$1 billion in revenue, a textbook portfolio bet against a softening US business. Today, with Calvin McDonald gone, growth decelerating, and lower-tier expansion meeting domestic incumbents, the bet looks less clean.

While Florasis opened flagships in Tokyo and Flower Knows raised growth capital, Proya, China's largest pure-play beauty company, has barely opened a counter abroad. Instead, it bought a Japanese hair brand, took a Series B stake in Flower Knows, opened a Paris R&D center and filed for a Hong Kong IPO. Inside Proya's patient capital playbook for going global, and what it tells us about the next phase of Chinese beauty's international ambition.

Most 'clean beauty' brands market on aesthetic. Tower 28 turned three independent medical-association seals into a moat: NEA, National Rosacea Society, and National Psoriasis Foundation. The Sephora-exclusive brand doubled sales in 2024 and became the retailer's highest-productivity brand. Inside Amy Liu's six-year operator playbook for building unfalsifiable consumer trust.

The #独居生活 hashtag on Xiaohongshu gained over 400 million views in just 90 days, signaling a dramatic shift in how China's growing solo population consumes, lives, and seeks brands. From RIO's micro-buzz cocktails to Heytea's KOC seeding, leading brands are designing for the solo occasion rather than marketing solo living as a lifestyle. Inside what international brands can learn from Japan's ohitorisama economy and the new Xiaohongshu Solo Living seeding playbook.

Chinese games have become China's most successful cultural export. Genshin hit US$10 billion in lifetime spending, Black Myth: Wukong sold 25 million copies, and Infinity Nikki crossed US$69 million in its first year. Consumer brands are often asked to follow the same playbook, but games and consumer goods sell very different things.

How Supergoop! went from a teacher's $30,000 bet to a $700M sunscreen empire. A DTC brand breakdown of its education-first strategy, hero products, and retail expansion.

In 2023, KANS proved that short dramas could sell skincare at scale. In 2025, over 40,000 new short drama series launched in China, ReelShort generated US$130 million in a single quarter overseas, and AI-powered productions cut costs to one-fifth of traditional methods. The short drama marketing model KANS pioneered has evolved far beyond what its creator imagined. This is the story of how it started, why it nearly collapsed, and where it is heading.

The Paris-Shanghai Perfume Show marked the first major collective appearance of Chinese fragrance brands in France. With LVMH and Estee Lauder backing brands like To Summer and Melt Season, the ambition is real. So is the challenge.

Glossier is the textbook DTC beauty brand: launched from blog Into The Gloss, powered by 70% peer-referral sales, valued at US$1.8 billion. But after layoffs, CEO changes, and a pivot to Sephora wholesale, the brand that once disrupted retail is now embracing it. Three CEOs, three strategic eras, and hard lessons for every DTC founder.

The AI agent craze sweeping China goes far beyond virtual pets. With Doubao shopping across four platforms in 30 seconds and Alipay processing 120 million agent transactions weekly, brands face a new consumer paradigm that demands strategic adaptation.