MASONPRINCE Shanghai Flagship Store / TOMO Design

Architects: TOMO Design, TO ACC
Area: 600 square meters
Year: 2024
Photography: FREE WILL PHOTOGRAPHY
Lead Architects: Uno Chan, Xiao Fei
Architects Team: Psyun, Linus, Jing, Jennifer
Decoration Design: Tin
Brand Promotion: Xiao Fei, Angel Yiu, Yuu, TUANTUAN, Sunshine PR
Installation Art: Acéphale Studio
Contractor: Shenzhen Botoo Construction Co., Ltd
Materials: Gradient glass, mirrored metal, walnut flooring, terrazzo, handmade brick, salt brick, carpet
Client: MASONPRINCE
City: Shanghai
Country: China

The MASONPRINCE Shanghai Flagship Store, designed by TOMO Design, transforms a 600-square-meter space on Huaihai Middle Road into a surreal journey across three levels. Conceived as a series of “backrooms,” the store challenges conventional retail by merging nostalgia, dreamlike fantasy, and futuristic imagination. Visitors encounter a sequence of immersive domains: a ground-floor lobby defined by surrealist installations and visual puzzles, a second-floor bathhouse inspired by medieval saunas and retro spa culture, and a third-floor studio that reinterprets office settings through retro-futuristic design. Materials such as gradient glass, mirrored metal, terrazzo, walnut, and salt bricks accentuate contrasts between reality and illusion. Rooted in the brand’s philosophy of “classless fashion,” the flagship store transcends its commercial role to become a cultural space, inviting exploration, curiosity, and a redefinition of the shopping experience.

We drew immediate inspiration from the ‘Backrooms’ concept, merging it with MASONPRINCE’s ethos to create a surreal, multi-layered ‘dreamcore’ of subconscious fantasy — dismantling conventional retail paradigms.
Interview with Uno Chan of TOMO DESIGN

Masonprince shanghai flagship store / tomo design — MASONPRINCE Shanghai Flagship Store / TOMO Design 110

Behind the classical Baroque balcony of No. 528 Huaihai Middle Road, TOMO Design has crafted a flagship store for fashion brand MASONPRINCE that operates at the threshold of reality and imagination. Rather than presenting clothing through conventional windows, the storefront announces itself through purple-red gradient glass and metallic louvers that disrupt yet respect the rhythm of the historic façade. This interplay of contrasts sets the tone for the surreal environments that unfold within.

The journey begins in the “irrational lobby,” where a surrealist installation connects upper and lower levels and immediately immerses visitors in a dreamlike atmosphere. Everyday objects—recast and reconfigured—become visual riddles: a ping pong table doubles as a sculpture, a fountain appears without water, and mirrored grilles fragment perception. Material choices heighten the effect, as mirrored metals, beige stone, and retro-styled tiles combine to generate both a sense of ceremony and playful disorientation.

Ascending to the second floor, the atmosphere shifts into what TOMO describes as an “optical illusion bathhouse.” Here, medieval sauna references are reimagined in salt brick walls, tiled surfaces, and showerhead-inspired lighting fixtures. A central pool evokes a vortex of the subconscious, while a mirrored ceiling stretches the environment infinitely, conjuring a distorted sense of time and scale. The setting balances intimacy and estrangement, encouraging visitors to immerse themselves in a spatial narrative that merges memory with invention.

The third floor advances into a heterotopian “studio” that evolves ideas first introduced in MASONPRINCE’s Guangzhou store. A walnut-paneled corridor, elongated by mirrors, becomes a temporal tunnel, contrasting with a luminous office-like setting that suggests a portal to the future. Retro furnishings are paired with futuristic materials, and the presence of old computers, copiers, and modular shelving transforms the store into a hybrid workspace where the boundaries between past and future collapse.

Throughout the project, TOMO Design reinforces MASONPRINCE’s ethos of classless fashion and retro-futuristic style by rejecting conventional retail logic. Instead of linear circulation, the space unfolds as a game-like exploration, full of illusions, contradictions, and shifting atmospheres. The result is a flagship that positions itself as more than a point of sale; it is an immersive cultural experience that reflects the brand’s restless experimentation.

By reconfiguring familiar elements into extraordinary forms, the flagship challenges visitors to suspend expectations and engage with the unfamiliar. It invites them not simply to shop but to inhabit a liminal realm where fashion becomes part of a larger narrative of surreal exploration. In doing so, TOMO Design and MASONPRINCE redefine the contemporary flagship as a site of imagination, storytelling, and sensory provocation.