Inspiration from the past

Guerrilla store, the shopping adventure

Shopping cannot only be translated into a functional activity.It has a social meaning and people are searching more and more for entertainment when they hunt for new clothes. The entire process can be simply called shopping adventure. 

With this vital detail in their minds, retailers are aware the more creative they are, the more money they'll gain , so their purpose is to create retail experiences for the customers. In this context, there is no doubt that "the luxury brand cathedrals" subject is a gigantic theme for debating , but , how about the concept of Guerrilla Stores?  These unconventional stores have a short life: they live only 12 months, in a place far from the shopping centers and they "act undercover". The stores are designed to be discovered by word-of mouth, as their target market "gossips" about them on the internet or in clubs.
Comme des Garcons, the Japanese fashion label, embraced the concept spending a minimal amount of money on the interiors of the stores, selling exclusive new pieces , items from previous collections and unsold stock.  

 One of their stores is opened in Poland's capital Warsaw in a former fruit store in a building that belongs to the Stalinist era. 

In this century fashion wears different clothes!

Nowadays ‘fashion hunters’ (*) are becoming more and more capricious in terms of fashion. Even if customers are loyal to one brand and they buy it repeatedly, they are also curious about what other brands have to say, what they offer and, most of all, if they are price oriented. It’s all about expressing yourself and, in some cases, expressing your ideal -self. The democracy is everywhere even in the implacable world of fashion.

 If we take a look into ‘what’s new in the fashion world’, we can see that since 2004, partnerships between famous luxury brands and chain stores have attracted customers from both up market and mass market.  If you are inquisitive enough to try to find out the reason why such great designers decided to offer their creations to some well-known retail chains(such as H&M) you will discover that this is not ‘charity’ at all and the surface reason declared by some of them is not this:” intention of making clothes available to the thousands of people who could not afford to shop “( Karl Legerfeld for Vogue, 2004) is not the real one. Why would they do this? Why would they try to get closer to the mass market if not for some strong reasons related to their business or maybe to their overall image? Using a method such as ‘Birds eye view’, I found myself trying to research in depth about this interesting strategy utilized by the above mentioned types of businesses in this unpredictable world of fashion. A quite relevant explanation would sound like this: Mass market is attracted by the sparkling world of luxury brands and up market finds value in fashionable clothes offered by inexpensive stores because they love to be complimented on their latest acquire and then stating that it costs almost nothing.  People love to experience new things and to seek different feeling during their shopping sessions. They want to be smart, they want to know & try everything. ‘Fashion hunters’ are not designed to stay in the routine, they must look forward all the time because fashion is not about looking back, it is about looking forward.

So, a collaboration like this would bring benefits for the both parts:  luxury brands would demonstrate they know how to be accessible and the chain stores would benefit from the sparkle, so a win-win situation could be identified in this story. Not to mention about the free publicity and the happy customers both mass market and up market because now they can go in an inexpensive store and buy not so expensive clothes which have on them the name of a  luxury brand smiling at them.

(*) Customers