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subscribe to style file blog via RSSHave Pop-Ups Jumped The Shark?
June 11, 2009 7:38 pm
Every day now, another brand hops on the guerrilla retail bandwagon—never mind the fact that, at this point, there’s nothing particularly guerrilla about the “here today, gone tomorrow” shop concept. When Rei Kawakubo opened the first Comme des Garçons Guerrilla Store in 2004, that was a subversion. Designer boutiques are “supposed to be” on grand thoroughfares like Fifth Avenue; Kawakubo opened her Guerilla Store in a scarred part of what used to be East Berlin. Designer boutiques are also supposed to be shiny and aspirational; Kawakubo occupied 750 square feet of raw space. Etc. Now, most of the pop-ups advertised coast to coast are glorified sample sales, or call-outs to large but otherwise unexceptional displays of merch in long-established stores. And this seems like as good a time as any to call pop-ups quits, because Rei Kawakubo, the person who kick-started the trend, is going pop-up crazy this summer. CDG is rolling out its Black label by launching ten separate pop-ups worldwide—everything from store-in-store boutiques to freestanding shops is included in the Black grand plan, and it seems entirely plausible that Kawakubo designed the juggernaut not only to sell stuff but to end the pop-up era with a bang. She’s satirizing her own knockoffs. It’s time for something new.
tags: CDG, Comme des Garcons, Rei Kawakubo
