Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

In more than three decades and 48 stores, Eslite had never left Greater China – until Kuala Lumpur, at The Starhill in Bukit Bintang.
The language is familiar: Mandarin and Chinese script remain everyday use among Malaysia’s Chinese, Cantonese dominant in KL itself. The culture is not – a Malay sultanate turned Islamic in the 15th century, passed through Portuguese, Dutch, and British rule, its capital founded not by any of them but by 87 Chinese tin miners in 1857.
The design challenge: root Eslite’s curated, artisan-led identity in a market plural in culture, not just language – without importing Taipei wholesale or dissolving into local motif.