Pop-up shops all the rage in London and now in the U.S.

Oh, where have our attention spans gone? If it's not immediate, in our faces, drive-thru, grab-n-go, we're onto the next thing. And yet, the pleasure of lingering over delicate treasures, languishing in our shopping experience pervades. We want it all, and we want it now.

Enter the Pop-up shop, a temporal marketplace that crops up like tender chamomile between the sidewalk cracks, then disappears with the scuffing of so many busy feet.

Decades in SOHO, NYC

Wikipedia's description of the Pop-up shop:

A pop-up retail space is a venue that is temporary — the space could be a sample sale one day and host a private cocktail party the next evening. The trend involves “popping-up” one day, then disappearing anywhere from one day to several weeks later. These stores, while small and temporary, can build up buzz by consumer exposure. Pop-up retail allows a company to create a unique environment that engages their customers, as well as generates a feeling of relevance and interactivity. They are often used by marketers for seasonal items such as Halloween costumes[1], Christmas gifts, or fireworks.

The term is often applied to stores offering items of apparel, where the store is intended less to transact profitable sales than to promote demand for the goods and thereby produce profitable business at other locations, or in modes other than walk-in stores.

Here is another article about Pop-up shops from trendwatching.com, "Pop-up Retail"

Gypsy Palace was part of a group of designers who showed in a Pop-up shop called The Art Shop in December 2009 and April 2010. Rebecca DeVere, a Kirkland, WA painter and jewelry designer, started the Art Shop with a handful of other local artists and ran a series of temporary galleries on Seattle's eastside. The group rented out a vacant retail space in a high traffic area for a period of 10-14 days and attracted as much attention as possible with a flamboyant opening reception and colorful signage. Gypsy Palace was showcased in trunk-show format at the first location, and as a vendor in the second.

Gypsy Palace at The Art Shop in Kirkland, WA, Dec. 2009

This was the first appearance by Gypsy Palace since the boutique closed in 2007. A little history on the boutique: It was known upon moving in (2006) that the building was slated for demolition and redevelopment in less than a year. Gypsy Palace was essentially a pop-up shop, having made its only other appearances at festivals and craft fairs prior to being established as a brick-and-mortar business. I went ahead and opened regardless of the temporary location as a way of gauging interest and with the intention of moving to a new location if things went well. It was quite an investment to make in a short-term business opportunity, but all experiments are worth doing--knowledge gained along the way is priceless. People in the Eastlake neighborhood were left wondering where that cute little boutique with the great coffee went. After spending a year living in a store, surviving on lattes and stale cookies, having my children visit me there because I hardly came home anymore, I decided there had to be another way to present my work to the world. Given my personality, lifestyle and work habits, a long-term, everyday retail commitment just doesn't work. The pop-up shop model totally does. In fact, there is a pop-up shop in my living room right now! If you live in the Seattle area, please contact me if you would like to visit the new Gypsy Palace boutique showroom in Kirkland. I am looking into the possibility of doing a pop-up shop of repurposed/recycled wearable art in the near future as well. Please follow this blog or on Twitter to stay updated.

Here are some photos of pop-up shops from other parts of the world:

Ksubi pop-up shop in Melbourne

Radar Redux in Baltimore

 Patch NYC 

I learned as a designer running a retail business that keeping up with the demands of business operation leaves no time to do what creative people love doing the most--creating. Gypsy Palace has been reborn, operating as a showroom, internet retailer and fashion line available in select boutiques. As lead designer, I can now spend my time at home with my children, working on new jewelry and clothing and connecting with other eco-fashion designers around the world. The pop-up shop model is exactly what Gypsy Palace is about: resourcefulness, willingness to evolve, and mobility. Forget the flagship, this is a Gypsy wagon. Catch us if you can!