[wordup] Temporary ... Shopping Zones!

[Adam Shand]

This is awesome, everytime I read about stuff like this I want to be
involved.  I love everythignabout it.

Adam.

Via: Brett Shand <brett at earthlight.co.nz>

--- Original Message ---
From: "Patrice Riemens" <patrice at xs4all.nl>
To: <nettime-l at bbs.thing.net>
Sent: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:13:12 +0100
Subject: <nettime> Temporary ... Shopping Zones!

> Fans of Thomas Frank (or is it the other way round? ;-), rejoice! There
> is really no end to capitalism's recuperative prowess:
>
> -------------------------
>
> Commes des Garcons Guerilla Store
>
> The ever-inventive and playful Rei Kawakubo's latest probe into the
> bleeding edge of the buying psyche. She's just opened this store in
> Berlin, Germany. It's the first example of provisional retailing by an
> established fashion house: the store plans to close in one year, even if
> it's making money.
>
> Instead of spending millions to build or renovate a building, Comme des
> Garcons spent just $2,500 to fix up a former bookshop in the historic
> Mitte district. Because the company doesn't plan to stay long in the
> 700-foot-square space, it didn't bother to remove the name of the
> previous tenant from the windows.
>
> Advertising consisted of 600 posters placed around the city, and word of
> mouth. Said Adrian Joffe, who conceived the store with his wife and
> partner Rei Kawakubo, "Of course it seems outrageous to close something
> once it becomes a success, and I think we will be successful." Of
> course, it helps to have a story about your venture appear on the front
> page of the New York Times, as this one did.
>
> Joffe continued, "To be creative at anything takes an unbelievable
> amount of energy, and the minute you start to feel content with your
> success is when you lose it. You don't want to get too comfortable."
>
> All 20 stores the company plans to open within the next year, including
> one in Brooklyn, will adopt the same guerilla strategy, disappearing
> after a year.
>
> The Comme des Garcons Guerilla Store flouts conventional wisdom in
> almost every way. Said Nancy Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business
> School, "Guerilla marketing is the wave of the future. Red Bull and
> Trader Joe's have built their followings by word of mouth."
>
> The sense in the fashion industry that nothing lasts for long has become
> more and more apparent. Tom Ford, whose career at Gucci will end next
> month, was asked recently if he thought people would remember him for
> his work there. "They will forget," he said with a snap of his fingers.
> "This is today. This is the world. Six months, a year, two years.
> Whatever happens goes away."
>
> For years, corporations have recognized that "the medium is the
> message." But as the sheer glut of information clogs up the sensory
> channels, making traditional news media less effective - American
> consumers are bombarded with 750,000 individual advertisements a year -
> marketing experts say how a product is sold can break through the
> clutter. Said Seth Matlins, a branding expert, "What you'll see is that
> distribution will become the message."
>
> Joffe and Kawakubo noted when they visited Berlin last summer that young
> consumers attitudes are shifting radically: content and product now
> count for more than image.
>
> Their new store, whose monthly rent is $700, gives Commes des Garcons an
> inexpensive way to channel avant garde pieces from the runway, sell off
> clothes from past seasons, and reduce inventory.
>
> Said Matlins, the branding expert, "One of the things we're seeing with
> kids is how much they're buying from eBay."
>
> Claudia Skoda, a knitwear designer shopping at the Guerilla Store, said,
> "I think people are tired of things you can get everywhere in the
> world."
>
> bookofjoe's World Tour 2004 will be visiting this store. No question
> it's filled with potential joeheads, joebabes, and joesluts.
>
> --------------
> (from the http://www.bookofjoe.com blog (cached by Google), March
> 10 entry - but I saw it first (sic) in Le Monde dated Feb 26...
>
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