Despite the orientation towards online retailing journey accelerated by the application of new-age technologies in the pandemic context, the role of the physical store still has a central role in luxury shopping in the digital omni-channel perspective. Digital technologies have increased their impact on consumers (Evanschitzky et al., 2020; Klaus & Zaichkowsky, 2020; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2020; Davenport et al, 2020; Huang and Rust, 2021a; Pantano et al, 2022). In today’s digital age, AI is one of the new-age technologies raising growing interest for their potential disruptive impact on marketing and retailing in different sectors (Forbes, 2022).

Introduction In the last decade, the luxury industry has witnessed strategic changes in its concept, essence and operation modes resulting from different factors and, in particular, digitalisation and democratisation in luxury fruition. As a result of those changes, luxury consumption has started to be perceived not simply in a conspicuous purchase perspective of goods or services, but as a 360 degrees experience, where cities - in particular in the emerging fast growing economies - have started being filled with luxury and fashion brands, invading every city area from streets to airports, from clinics to hotels and with concept stores, luxury flagship stores, sponsorships for events and urban artefacts, adding value to the symbolic production of an urban lived space (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2016). In this new dimension of luxury, the underlying hypothesis of this paper is that luxury product brands are enriched by and, hence, draw value from the synergy with city brands and diverse fashion and art city locations, activities and events. This statement is based on that luxury perspective seeing luxury more in its experiential dimension than in the one of a pure desire for an exclusive object purchase and ownership. Accordingly, to what extent is the relation between the luxury brand and the city brand functional to the boosting of luxury brand experiential content? From our point of view, this deserves more specific focus. Based on these premises and with respect to the current evolution of fashion luxury cities and the retailing scenario, this paper will specifically focus on the evolution and different forms of concept stores with particular attention to their interaction with the urban context. The case of concept stores is particularly relevant due to the crisis of this retailing model caused by the rise of luxury e-shops which are becoming dominant brand channels also for luxury segments. In the case of the concept stores we can, in fact, see if and to what extent the value of ―offline stores‖ is rooted in their physical presence in an urban environment that is rich in history and cultural heritage. Two case studies will be carried out, XXX in Shanghai and Luisa Via Roma in Florence, Italy, thus including two different urban contexts characterised by a different relation with fashion and luxury industries, historically and nowadays. Authentic luxury experiences in relevant city contexts (that is in city contexts with which fashion brands succeed in establishing a meaningful, credible and so valuable relation) may add value to luxury brands, in particular to those brands with no consolidated heritage and identity, as in the case of the new Chinese luxury brands. In general, for those luxury brands with a very limited identity and an almost absent heritage, in-store experience is likely to be of special relevance and of increasing importance (Atsmon et al, 2012). Without neglecting the rise of online brand channels and the vibrancy of virtual fashion spaces, the shopping location certainly still represents a crucial factor for the increasingly diverse and demanding luxury customers, for whom the shopping location is not just an instrument of purchase but also a value-adding experience on its own (Rintamaki et al, 2007). Fashion City: An Evolutionary Perspective Historically luxury and fashion have been linked to some specific cities in western countries such as Paris, London, Milan and New York, the so called capitals of luxury and fashion (Breward and Gilbert, 2006); those capitals are considered to be the places where luxury fashion production and consumption cross each other providing economic value for the sector and a unique experience for the consumers. More recently, the scenario has been changing. The ‗fashion city‘ has strated being one of the ‗brands‘ of economic development, seen as capable of strategically boosting attractiveness for the repositioning of a diverse set of cities across the world (Breward and Gilbert, 2006). Urban authorities, policy-makers, and various academic approaches have devoted attention to this phenomenon. The concept of the fashion city has started being part of urban plans and municipal promotional activities trying to reposition cities as attractive destinations for firms, human capital and especially for the ―creatives‖, investors, consumers, and tourists. An increasing number of developing and fast growing countries have achieved the status of ‗second-tier‘ cities of fashion (Larner et al., 2007) such as Antwerp, Shanghai, Beijing, Istanbul, Melbourne, Moscow, Vienna, as centres of reference of a highly diversified fashion context of culture, design, manufacturing and consumption. Although these cities have very different economic and cultural background and history, they indicate the evolution and the interaction between fashion and fashion players - including concept stores - and the urban context. Academia has started clarifying what a fashion city was, what constitutes a traditional fashion city and the interaction between luxury fashion and the fashion city. However, the interaction and evolution of luxury fashion cities and some of the urban players, such as concept stores, is far from being fully clarified and understood. The same can be said regarding the characteristics of the emerging luxury fashion cities. In particular, with respect to the differences characterising those new luxury fashion cities, there is still a very limited research. This article is aimed to make a contribution in this field by discussing the relation between fashion players (i.e. concept stores) and the urban landscape. This will also lead to define a set of characteristics of the contemporary luxury fashion city, based on their functional role in supporting luxury brands‘ value creation processes. In fact, it is certainly not possible to analyse the impact of the global luxury capitals on luxury brands without considering the evolution in city branding, i.e. the way in which cities are represented in order to create an image of the place. Fashion and Luxury in the Urban Branscape As said, ‗fashion city‘ has evidently been considered as potential device to reposition ‗second tier‘ – either large or small - urban contexts. If on the one hand fashion design has been integrated into urban policies in order to boost local economies (Martinez 2007), on the other hand fashion marketing seems to have integrated its luxury fashion strategies into the ―urban brandscape‖ (Bellini and Pasquinelli 2016). Fashion branding has, then, gone clearly in the direction of actively pursuing an appropriation of the city image whose value is drawn by corporate brands (Tokatli 2013). This last aspect, however, has received rather limited attention in literature. In the last decade, the fashion city has enhanced its economic and cultural importance specifically thanks to the economic value generated by the creative process and cultural value of cities (DMCS, 2001; Scott, 2002; Power and Scott, 2004; Breward and Gilbert, 2006; Rantisi, 2011; Bellini and Rovai, 2018). Initially, fashion cities and their fashion design component had only been considered with respect to the creative industry in relation to the mix of physical and symbolic processes involved in the current fashion industry. This combined a highly globalised manufacturing chain with a designer fashion sector mostly concentrated in fashion‘s world cities, together with other image-producing activities that contribute to the creation of place-based symbolic narratives (Williams and Currid-Halkett, 2011). However, the evolution towards new luxury fashion cities has shown a diversification of their meaning and positioning (Martìnez 2007). The delocalisation of fashion manufacturing in offshore urban centres together with the digitalisation and IT component in the process have modified the fashion industry (Segre Reinach, 2005), in parallel with the changes in the economy of media, marketing and the symbols associated to them. Accordingly, it is important to stress how the geographical origin, connection or association of fashion brands to places is simply constructed and negotiated (Pike 2010, 2011), until becoming a pure matter of perception in some case (Thakor and Kohli 1996). Moreover, it is important to notice – and this paper is engaged with this issue – how the fashion brand connection to a city can be built through the creation and exploitation of ―a status market‖ in which the brand is located (Hauge et al. 2009): think, for instance, of how fashion brands capitalize on the presence of prestigious urban assets such as cultural heritage and fine arts (Bellini and Pasquinelli, 2016). This is particularly relevant if thinking that fashion luxury‘s world cities also can count on valuable frameworks of cultural players such as museums, theatres, libraries, festivals, and academic institutions reinforcing their attractiveness (Volonté, 2012). Also relying on such mechanisms, a new wave of luxury and fashion capitals has emerged, i.e. the so called ‗not-so-global‘ cities of fashion, exemplifying new forms of symbolic economy and manufacturing that are not included in the usual classification of luxury fashion cities as New York, Milan, London and Paris (Rantisi and Leslie, 2006; Larner et al., 2007). Such ―not so global cities‖ largely contribute to reshaping the global geography of fashion capitals, which can be redefined as the result of the multiple and highly diverse typologies of links a city succeeds in establishing with products, firms, events and fashion stores, by drawing values and symbols from them (Jansson and Power 2010 ; Power and Jansson 2011). Research Design and Methodology The urban dimension of luxury and fashion brands characterising the emerging geography of fashion has not been extensively analysed. In this direction, this article will focus on the analysis of two international luxury fashion urban centres, i.e. Florence and Shanghai, which will be framed as brandscapes interacting with fashion players that are locally based. Particular attention will be drawn to concept stores by analysing their evolution and their changing relation with the surrounding urban contexts, notwithstanding a clear acknowledgement of the growing relevance of e-shops and digital platforms. A qualitative methodology, based on a review of internet sources, in-store visits and in-depth semi-structured interviews with store managers (to understand the concept store‘s strategy) and various local fashion players (to frame the urban brandscape and its relation with fashion), will be adopted to build a comparative framework. Reputable key players in the respective cities as concepts stores, i.e. Favotell in Shanghai and Luisaviaroma in Florence will be selected as case studies. That is, the study will highlight the synergies between fashion brands and city brands by focusing especially on concept stores, their interaction with the urban symbolic ecosystem and their evolution in the geography of contemporary emerging luxury fashion capitals. Expected Results Below the key propositions that we expect to discuss as a result of the presented study: ⦁ The urban brandscape is mirrored by the concept stores which tend to narrate the connection of their brand to the city ; ⦁ The concept store goes out into the city pushing its visible and distinctive presence in the urban symbolic ecosystem ; this mechanism is rich in symbolic content benefiting the fashion brands whose local, physical and tangile presence in specific urban settings has a strategic role in global value creation ; ⦁ The concept store has developed from a purely physical setting to including the online store ; also throughout such development, it maintains the physical location – its style, taste and connection to specific urban settings and local heritage – as reference and vividly alive ; ⦁ The global travelling of the concept store-city connection – also but not exclusively through digital platforms – make the city brand travel and evolve.