Stylenanda: L'Oréal bought it for 3CE, let the streetwear brand fade from China

Stylenanda was founded in 2004 by South Korean Kim So-hee as a streetwear e-commerce label selling clothing, bags, shoes and accessories at friendly prices. It became the search-hit leader in Naver's women's-fashion category by 2006, opened flagship stores in Seoul's Lotte Mall and Hongdae in 2012, and was brought into the Chinese market by Hong Kong's I.T group in 2014. For most Chinese consumers it was the face of the previous wave of Korean fashion — the brand people latched onto after the drama Descendants of the Sun, much as Innisfree rode My Love from the Star.

In June 2018, L'Oréal completed its acquisition of Nanda, the parent of both Stylenanda and its cosmetics sub-brand 3CE, for an estimated 570–600 billion won. L'Oréal declared 3CE the brand it would develop in China, and the imbalance was immediately visible: at 2021 Singles' Day, 3CE sales broke ¥100 million and ranked third in cosmetics behind YSL and Estée Lauder, while its Tmall store carried 12.18 million followers to Stylenanda's 2.98 million — a gap the beauty line's investment created more than it reflected.

In late 2022 the neglected streetwear label wound down its Chinese online presence: it closed its Tmall overseas flagship, its Chinese site stopped taking orders after October 16 and stopped Chinese service after December 31, with customer service citing a 'channel adjustment'. Offline contracted to five 3CE STYLENANDA shops across Hangzhou, Shanghai, Nanjing and Zhengzhou, of which only Shanghai and Nanjing sold the label's clothing — the rest carried 3CE cosmetics only. The Sanlitun store, its first and flagship Beijing location, had closed in June 2022.

The retreat was a deliberate prioritisation, not an independent decline: while Stylenanda faded, a new wave of Korean streetwear labels — Kirsh, Nerdy, Chuu and We11done — was expanding rapidly into first- and second-tier Chinese cities, opening in the same premium malls Stylenanda had left behind. A corporate owner chose one brand out of its bundle and let the other — the one that had built the house — quietly retire.