Beauty / article
Partner Season II Uses Celebrities to Push C-Beauty Brands Global with London Pop-Up
A new reality docuseries, Partner Season II, follows six Chinese celebrities—including top livestreamer Austin Li—as they operate a temporary C-beauty store in London to help 14 Chinese beauty brands gain international exposure beyond traditional livestream commerce.
The show, co-produced by Hunan Satellite TV and Mango TV, documents six celebrity partners as they launch and run YanLab, a multi-brand pop-up store in London's Fitzrovia neighborhood. The celebrities include beauty e-commerce livestreamer Austin Li, actresses Zhang Yuxi and Zhao Zhaoyi, actor Yan An, and singers Shang Wenjie and Mika Hashizume.
Unlike typical endorsement deals, the celebrities are fully immersed in the store operations. Cameras capture them preparing the space, learning the product assortment, interacting with customers, making recommendations, and collecting real-time feedback. Every transaction and customer reaction becomes both entertainment and market research.
The 14 participating Chinese beauty and personal care brands benefit from direct consumer insights gathered in a Western market. Shang Wenjie, who serves as the store's Operations Director, described the project as a blend of reality show, documentary, and global business venture.
“We’re gathering authentic information from the international market while helping Chinese brands understand what consumers overseas actually want,” Wenjie told BeautyMatter. “It’s a cultural experiment, but it’s also an entrepreneurship project.”
The initiative aims to help Chinese beauty brands—collectively a $143 billion market—build global recognition through experiential retail and storytelling, moving beyond their reliance on livestream commerce.