Adrian Joffe has altered the face of fashion retail before, and now the Dover Street Market CEO plans on doing so again.
As Business of Fashion reports, Joffe will soon cut the red ribbon on a new events-slash-retail experiment named 3537. The name is lifted from its headquarters in the Hôtel de Coulanges at 35-37 Rue des Francs-Bourgeois and will become Dover Street Market’s first major Paris store.
The new space will punctuate the shopping experience with regular events, which Joffe hopes will bring further energy to the retail side of the operation. 3537′s “activity space" comprises an impressive 19,375 square feet or about 60 percent of the mansion.
“I didn’t want to just create another Dover Street Market,” said Joffe. "We’re trying to create something that can live outside this building. Maybe the retail space will be part of the event, rather than the event being part of the retail space.”
“You can’t experience a concert or a rave or a gallery online,” he continued. “The whole beauty of those things is interacting.”
As BoF explains, the goal is simple: if people are hanging out at DSM more often, logic suggests they will spend more money. Joffe also went on to say that the store could be the last in Paris, and went on to highlight Athens as the kind of bubbling up city that would be of interest for the 3537 experience in the future.
One person who wasn't involved in the project was COMME des GARÇONS designer and Joffe's wife, Rei Kawakubo.
“For Kawakubo, always starting from zero is the most important thing; business comes second,” explained Joffe. “Without real creation there can be no progress. As long as I am alive, I want to do my best on the retail side to adhere to the same values, bringing her vision to retail and maybe now to the next level.”
“I don’t see Dover Street Market as a retailer anymore.”
Read the article in full over at Business of Fashion.
