A time for moon-gazing, lantern-making, dragon boat racing and more, the Mid-Autumn Festival in China is rich in cultural symbolism and offers a chance for luxury brands to uphold its cultural relevancy in the market.
Viewed as the second most important festival after Chinese New Year, this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival runs from Sept. 15 to 17.
Despite an anticipated boost to tourism and consumption during the three-day national holiday, the Chinese market slowdown looms large, which meant brands have begun to embrace targeted initiatives in lieu of big-budget marketing events to cultivate brand awareness.
“Opportunities such as the Mid-Autumn Festival and traditional VIC gifts are becoming increasingly aligned with the strategic priorities of these brands,” said Jacques Roizen, managing director of consulting at DLG, who said the end goal is for shoppers to spend more in mainland China.
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“It also presents a unique opportunity to distinguish themselves from competitors through captivating creativity and relevance, in the eyes of this essential customer group,” Roizen added.
With the rising importance of key opinion leaders, who largely overlap with VIP consumers in China, not-for-sale gift sets reserved for a list of carefully vetted clients also help create a sense of exclusivity and drive organic conversation online, in particular on Xiaohongshu, a popular social commerce platform.
This year, intangible cultural heritages became a shared source of inspiration for top-tier luxury brands.
At Louis Vuitton, it was a playful interpretation of the art of Shaanxi paper-cutting. “The ancient Northern Shaanxi ‘Zhuaji Moppet’ symbolizes the strength of this tradition, while the Xunyi color paper cutting, which is often inspired by folk tales, exudes a rustic charm and covey festive blessings,” Louis Vuitton in said a press release.
For the past three years, the luxury powerhouse owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton has been communicating its affinity with Chinese traditional culture via Mid-Autumn Festival gift boxes.
In 2022, the megabrand stopped sending mooncakes and delivered an ink-rubbing kit instead. Created more than 1,000 years ago, the ink-rubbing technique was used to make copies of ancient inscriptions or artworks. The kit also included three selected rubbing prints, titled “Wealth and Beauty,” “Children Playing in an Autumn Courtyard,” and “Glory, Splendor and Wealth” signifying much-need good fortune and optimism for a market still facing COVID-19 aftershocks.
In 2023, Louis Vuitton’s wooden chest of cultural wonders included a calligraphy set and a curated collection of Chinese and international moon poems.
Loewe, another avid explorer of regional Chinese traditions, sent VIP shoppers a gift basket created via traditional bamboo-weaving techniques, another intangible cultural heritage. The gift basket, which contains mooncakes in four flavors, including creamy egg yolk, black truffle pork, pandan lotus, and red bean, also includes a traditional Chinese spinning top, a toy that is also used to exorcise evil spirits and pray for blessings.
“When it spins, it’s like a full moon rising, symbolizing longevity and happiness,” noted the brand.
Marrying the old with the new, Dior‘s paper lantern was emblazoned with its signature Miss Dior logo, and introduced two new mooncake flavors — crab roe and Iberico Ham.
Drawing inspiration from one of China’s four great porcelains, the blue and white porcelain, Moynat worked with master artisans of Jingdezhen, China’s ceramics capital, to come up with a triangular gift set that’s reminiscent of the Parisian trunk maker’s original logo, which was hand-painted on the lid to incorporate a rabbit figurine, a mascot of the festival.
“Over two meticulous months, the piece is shaped, polished, painted, and fired, each step imbuing it with life and character,” said Moynat.
Inspired by the idea of a Chinese cabinet, Fendi designed a yellow lacquered wooden box with black F-shaped legs. Four embroidered handkerchiefs with the iconic FF logo pay tribute to Fendi’s Selleria stitching technique. The gift box contains four momoyama mooncakes filled with fragrant osmanthus orange, velvet coconut, pine nut with date, and black rice fillings.
At Miu Miu, VIP shoppers received a “Miu Miu blue” wooden lantern that “captures the mystery and charm of traditional entertainment,” or the holiday ritual of hanging colorful lanterns outdoors. “The lantern casts beautiful shadows onto its surroundings, and with its customizable sides, it creates your own magical night of moonlight,” Miu Miu wrote in a gift note.
At Chanel, guests received a magnifying glass and paper weight created by its in-house Goossens workshop, which also paid tribune to Gabrielle Chanel’s love of books and reading.
Lemaire, also musing on a full moon, introduced a China-only dark sage colorway for its hyped Fortune Croissant leather handbag.
“Its lines perfectly contour the body, creating an almost full circle, akin to the unity and completeness commemorated during this time of the year,” said Lemaire in a press release.
