BigShinyThing

Tuesday 12 April 2005

Guerrilla stores and the new anti-chic

Japanese label Comme des Garcons has pioneered the idea of ‘guerrilla stores’ - temporary retail outlets that occupy a vacant space and rely on word on mouth for advertising. Comme is also behind Dover Street market (pictured) the anti-big brand shopping experience dubbed the ‘most talked about store in London’ and which sells a number of designers in seemingly shambolic surroundings.

According to Vittorio Radice:

Think about it - the jump from being a ‘mono-brand’ store where it’s like going to church .. where no one says a word and you have this over-sophisticated music, just this jump of calling it ‘market’, it’s like bulls crashing around loose, boom! and you could, with time, execute it really like a market. That’s wonderful.

[Tank magazine]

Comme des Garcons’ founder Rei Kawakubo says she wanted to create:

a kind of market where creators from various fields come together and encounter each other in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful chaos.

Posted by Anne-Fay | Tags: retail

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