BRANDS & CULTURE Archives - Page 3 of 4

Art fusion: Mistakes to Avoid

Jun Takahashi, the founder and designer behind the Japanese avant-garde label Undercover and known for his rather original tagline “We Make Noise, Not Clothes”, has become wary of art collaborations. For Takahashi, many of the collaborations he sees are mere marketing gimmicks. Consequently, the ones he chooses to engage his brand with must go deeper: “What all [our] collaborations have in common is that they make it possible to do something that we cannot do as Undercover. It’s more like friendships and shared interests, and taking advantage of each other’s resources,” he says.

Clearly for Undercover, it’s not about collaborating for ‘collaboration’s sake’. But how many art or design collaborations happen for exactly that reason? How many take something that is meant to be genuine and relevant and perhaps inadvertently, cause it to become insincere and uninspiring instead? Unfortunately, the number of less-than-original, less-than-relevant and alas, less-than-desirable art collaborations has been on the rise. Sadly, it’s a misused opportunity not only for the brands, but also for the artists and designers involved.

Normally, we like to focus our attention on dynamic and desirable art-fusion collaborations that work well. However this time, we’d like to turn our eye to a few collaborations we thought didn’t quite make it.

1800 TEQUILA & KEITH HARING: ESSENTIAL ARTIST BOTTLE SERIES
For the limited-edition capsule collection of six collaborative bottles, 1800 Tequila partnered with the Keith Haring Foundation to give a new platform to Haring’s revered socio-political work. It followed their previous release of Jean Michael Basquiat’s capsule collection. The extent of each collaboration was to wrap 1800 Tequila bottles, quite predictably, in different kinds of artwork. No wonder some of the comments posted on social media were unenthused: “I love Basquiat and Haring as much as the next guy, but can we stop using their art on the most ridiculous products? In fact, let’s stop using it on clothing while we’re at it… “ And to add to the project’s lack of originality, the 1800 Tequila press releases announced each new artist’s bottle series by only replacing the participating artist’s name with the next. Taking a too simplistic approach to an art-fusion collaboration can often result in cynicism – something to avoid we say.

ETSY & WHOLE FOODS MARKET: INGREDIENTS FOR CREATIVITY
The reusable grocery bag produced in collaboration by Whole Foods and Etsy was to promote ‘ingredients & creativity.’ Yet instead, it ended up promoting ‘staleness and predictability’, so to speak. Why not truly collaborate and rather than simply printing on a conventional grocery bag, why not reinvent a bag from scratch, or deconstruct the existing one and turn the expected into the unexpected instead? A bag with a shape that’s less traditional and with art that’s less predictable; a bag that’s double-sided, with art on the inside as well as on the outside; a bag that’s ready to go places beyond a grocery store. Wouldn’t we all have loved it?

SECOND CUP COFFEE ARTIST SERIES: CREATIVITY, OPTIMISM & COLLABORATION
The series of three artist coffee cups was a collaboration that unfortunately started with an already predictable idea. By using a conventional, all-too-familiar paper cup, the collaboration had very little room left to play with newness and originality. Instead of “holding an original” which was the series theme, it was rather about holding ‘the same old’ only in different wrapping. We’re big fans of the Second Cup brand and feel optimistic their next art collaboration will push the boundaries further.

The lesson learned? Art collaborations are not about re-packaging. No matter how attractive, it’s still just wrapping. The key ingredient to a successful art-fusion collaboration is having a strong desire to challenge conventions to promote newness and desire. No small task, we say. Art collaborations have been around for a long time now, and the most memorable ones seem so effortless – what we have to remember is that the process behind each is filled with herculean efforts to achieve originality. And it’s that sort of effort that produces a product that’s so rewarding at the end.

In our next post we’ll take a look at refreshingly different city guides. We’ll see you then.

JUN TAKAHASHI’S UNDERCOVER

JUN TAKAHASHI’S UNDERCOVE

UNDERCOVER x UNIQlO

UNDERCOVER x NIKE

1800 Tequila x Jean Michael Basquiat

Second Cup Coffee Artist Series

Etsy x Whole Foods Market

The Art of the Trade Booth

Attending a trade show can be a stimulating experience. The sheer number of booths filled with all the latest and greatest can fill one with anticipation and excitement. However, when very few booths go beyond the traditional design formula, visiting a trade show can become monotonous and leave one physically fatigued and emotionally uninspired. Not the experience businesses hope for when they invest in booth space.

But how difficult is it to design a booth with an engaging story to tell? Woodlove, a curated space at the latest Interior Design Show in Toronto (IDS16) had many. Thanks to the unconventionality of the booth design, all the incorporated products made every visitor’s heart open up. Most likely their wallets as well, as the concept of the space was to help consumers identify and purchase locally made wood products. What the Woodlove booth had ultimately done was encourage imagination—it told a true Canadian story in an environment we could all fantasize about. Who would not smile at that?

Woodlove was a collaborative project between a multi-disciplinary design practice Citizens and Collaborators and the governmental agency Ontario Wood. The space paid homage to Canada’s heritage and “wood’s role in shaping our diverse history”. The irresistible wood cabin that was central to the display represented not only the spirit of the Canadian landscape, but also the essence of Canadian northern elegance that we seldom get to see together.

Undoubtedly, Woodlove was created with a budget that many small brands simply don’t have. Modest budgets are one of the main reasons trade show booths have become ubiquitously bland and undifferentiated from one trade show to the next. However the Woodlove space capably delivered a couple of crucial lessons for other exhibitors to take away, regardless of budget.

FIRST, PROMOTING CURIOSITY & NOT PRODUCTS IS WHAT GETS ATTENTION. Whether in social media or directly on trade show floors, word-of-mouth is hard to beat. When promoting products or services, it is the context that matters, as much as the content. For example, displaying a door handle integrated in thought-provoking and imaginative surroundings is much more enticing and eye-catching than a door handle displayed on a panel with a bunch of other door handles leading nowhere.

SECOND, STORIES, NOT PRODUCT DISPLAYS ARE WHAT MAKE US CURIOUS & WANT TO TELL OTHERS. For example, a door handle on a door made of gingerbread will immediately remind us of the Hansel and Gretel story and connect us with our own childhood memories of the legendary fairytale. It can be as simple as that, or as complex as we’d like it to be. Needless to say, the spirit of a gingerbread door could transform a basic trade show booth into a world of magic, just like the Woodlove space turned a few square meters of tradeshow floor space into the magical north.

Bottom line? Trade show booths need to become vibrant storybooks to spark our imaginations and impress us enough to tell others about them. Brand managers need to think beyond displaying their products to create the magic consumers desire. Finding the right design collaborators is in many cases, all that it takes. After all, it’s the stories that stick in our heads, not the business cards or marketing booklets we’ll come back to when all is said and done.

In our next post we’ll turn our eye to a few collaborations we thought didn’t quite make it. See you then.

Habitat For Humanity – Brick For Brick campaign for IDS16

ROLLOUT’s art collabs Wallpaper space for ids16

WOODLOVE By CITIZENS AND COLLABORATORS for IDS16 (photo by Peter Sellar)

So an Artist & an Opera Singer Walk into a Bar …

Have you ever wondered what happens to all the props after a large stage performance, like, say an opera, is over and done with? Dean Baldwin, a Canadian artist known for blurring the line between art and life, had a plan. For the 2015 Feature Art Fair in Toronto, which took place for the second time at the Toronto historical building that houses the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre, Baldwin most fittingly fabricated an art installation with objects and accouterments from the Canadian Opera Company’s seldom seen arsenal of props.

Baldwin’s plan was not only to educate visitors about the Feature Art Fair’s unique location, but also to stimulate and engage them in a much larger dialogue on arts and culture. All that in a style that one would expect from a collaboration between four high-integrity Arts partners: a Canadian artist renowned for creating highly participatory art – Dean Baldwin; Canada’s largest opera company – Canadian Opera Company; Calgary’s largest privately funded non-commercial art gallery dedicated to the advancement of contemporary art – Esker Foundation; and one of Canada’s leading contemporary art fairs – Feature Art Fair.

The site-specific installation, titled quite appropriately ‘The Hoard’, included a bar that was serviced by the artist himself. ‘The Hoard’ opened daily between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m., after the art fair’s ‘Feature Talks’ lectures wrapped up, and served as a meeting place for fair’s visitors’ informal discussions. A marriage made in heaven shall we say?

The Hoard offered an experience that was not only artful, but also educational and mostly quite unique. Engaging with fellow art goers in further conversation while sipping a glass or two of bubbly in a room tastefully furnished with props representing a wide range of historic periods, from Ancient Greece to Post-modernism is an experience that’s hard to forget.

Still the most unforgettable aspect of the collaboration was the seized opportunity by the four partners in the first place. The multi-dimensional partnership provided a platform for a collaboration that resulted in an exceptional experience. With subtlety and sophistication, it promoted an enlightening and stimulating program that spoke highly and widely of all four partners involved and to everyone who joined in.

In our next post we’ll offer a couple of crucial lessons on designing trade show booths that spark our imaginations. See you then.

the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre, TORONTO, CANADA

THE MAIN ENTRANCE TO the Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Opera Centre, TORONTO, CANADA

Dean Baldwin’S THE HOARD (close up)

Dean Baldwin’S THE HOARD

Space, The New Art-Fusion Frontier

Public and private spaces where people intermingle – train stations, hotel lobbies, department stores, coffee shops and libraries – have started to become recognized as blank canvases, yearning to be transformed into something more significant. Spaces that are merely pleasant are often not enough for certain brands to get by anymore, that generic pleasantness quickly disappearing from customers’ memories without enthusiasm, admiration, or attention.

Converting spaces into inviting and intriguing art installations has become something brands of all stripes and sizes have begun to pay attention to and put their money on—and rightly so. Art installations, while capable of transforming physical walls, floors and ceilings into spaces full of imagination and inspiration, are also capable of shifting an audience’s perception of a brand, from forgettable to intriguing overnight.

One thing that holds true of both little-known and household-name brands alike, is that while size doesn’t matter, ideas do. Even a very small scale art installation– if it has a genuine and relevant artistic concept that is well executed – can easily become known far and wide, thanks to social media’s amplified word of mouth. Toronto’s own Sam James Coffee Bar (SJCB) is a perfect example. This small local chain of coffee shops has become recognized not only for its powerful coffee, but also for its powerful dark and grainy wallpaper installations. No matter how ultra-compact the five SJCB spaces are, there’s always room for the dark and beautifully distorted imagery. With each installation, one can introspectively look deeper into the art or curiously stare to find one’s own story. Either way, you know you’ve arrived at a SJCB shop, as soon as you see the dark and grainy looking wall made of distorted wheat-pasted imagery. Sam James, the brand’s founder, collaborated with his friend Jeremy Jansen, a Toronto-based artist represented by Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto.

So what’s so effective about their collaboration? A key is that when it was developed at SJCB’s original Harbord Street location, it was allowed the time and artistic license it needed to create a trademark look. Harbord’s wallpaper installation represents a chronology of pastes, one layered over a previous one, again and again over the past 6 years. A pastiche of unusual looking imagery is continuously plastered over the wall, allowing it to become an icon of strangeness and magnificence at the same time.

As Sam James explains, “There is generally a correlating theme with the images and the space, or an inside reference. For example, the pastes at PATH are scans of film negatives with double sided tape laid in a way to represent a skyline of office towers, scarred with dust and lint from the studio. It’s meant to look ominous and larger than human scale. I want it to feel slightly intimidating, as if something was watching you, but you’re unaware of its presence or its reference at least. To the viewer, it should appear to be snowy and textured, more than it is graphic or figurative.” It is a piece not only to be looked at, but also to be talked about and wondered about – just as we’ve been doing for a few years here at Arts & Labour.

For this strategically minded young brand, in a competitive category full of hipper-than-thou boutique coffee shops, the space they inhabit is a crucial opportunity to engage the consumer, excite them and be remembered for it. The wheat-pasted black imagery has become their trademark – visual DNA that’s easily transplantable into any SJCB location. They have skillfully, yet unpretentiously, fused the brand with art by adding another level to their already desirable experience, good coffee. It’s a combination that’s hard to resist and makes them a competitor that’s hard to beat.

In our next post we’ll take a look at a somehow unusual art-fusion collaboration from the latest Feature Art Fair in Toronto. Happy 2016!

SJCB Harbord Shop, Toronto (photography by Revelateur Studio)

SJCB Ossington Shop, Toronto (photography by Revelateur Studio)

SJCB Ossington Shop,Toronto (photography by Revelateur Studio)

SJCB Harbord Shop, Toronto (photography by Revelateur Studio)

SJCB Ossington Shop, Toronto (photography by Revelateur Studio)

Branding Lessons from the Venice Art Biennale

Venice Art Biennale, the internationally renowned, biannual art event that takes over Venice, Italy from May to November is not only of great social, cultural and political stature, it’s also a powerful marketing platform – for countries. It’s a place where Canada for instance, can be seen as a global brand and visitors can be made into global brand ambassadors. Perhaps the oldest and most prestigious contemporary art fair in the world has something to teach us about branding as well as art.

Each country participating in the Venice Art Biennale, selects its finest contemporary artist to represent the country in originality, innovation and relevance on the global art scene. It’s a task with many parallels to marketing that will seem familiar to brand managers of all kinds; the task of making a country or brand as desirable and irresistible as possible. Still, despite the Biennale delivering many stimulating experiences and plenty of valuable lessons on creative strategy, it has yet to become a destination for companies to send brand managers to glean what art professionals have been doing for years.

One brand, however, that can boast taking full advantage of everything the biennale has to offer is Italy’s very own Illycaffè. A prominent Italian coffee company, Illy has been one of the key sponsors of this famed art event for many years. Simply put, the Italian-based brand has made art and the search for beauty, central to how they do business. They’ve harnessed the emotional appeal of art by becoming one of the first coffee brands to use art collaborations to help elevate its brand’s core proposition and expand its soul.

According to Illy, “… the search for beauty isn’t merely a nice thing to do, or a marketing exercise, but a cornerstone of corporate culture and decision-making.” The coffee brand considers their coffee cup collaborations with prominent artists “Illy’s highest profile, ongoing cultural project”.

Their collaborations, just like art, are not about just seeing, but fully experiencing them, visually and emotionally. Illy has managed to build all the necessary sensory components to transform basic coffee consumption into a full aesthetic experience. At Arts & Labour, we say “bravi Illy!” while sipping their delicious espresso, proudly back in Canada.

In our next post, we’ll be exploring space, the new art-fusion frontier. Until then.

Venice art biennale 2015

Illymind at the Venice art Biennale 2015

The optical art Illy Biennale Cafe x Tobias Rehberger at the Venice Art Biennale 2015

illymind at the Venice Art Biennale e 2015

illy cafe shipping container (closed) at the Venice Art Biennale 2015

illy cafe shipping container (open)at the Venice Art Biennale 2015

Illy Cafe bar x jeff koons, 2002

Illy Cafe bar x Tobias Rehberger at the london design week 2015

Illy Cafe x Robert Wilson art performance, 2014

The Death of a Gift Shop

In recent years, museum gift shops’ artsy t-shirts, mugs and scarves have been greeted with a diminishing sense of enthusiasm. However, more progressive art organizations like the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and the New Museum in New York have started to reinvent the role of their gift stores. At Arts & Labour, we say it’s about time.

In the recent New York Times article “For the Walker Art Center, a Shop That Peddles Evanescence,” Melena Ryzik examines the changing responsibility of artists and museum shops. A new conceptual art pop-up store at the Walker aims to change the traditional notion of the gift shop. As Emmet Byrne, the Walker’s Museum’s design director explains, “it’s more about a digital bazaar with pieces priced to sell, an exhibition of sorts, with curated original artworks”. Michele Tobin, the gift shop’s retail director explains further, “the priority isn’t ‘get as much as you can’ for that item in the marketplace.”

This is great news. Many so-called cultural brands like museums and art institutes have been lagging behind commercial brands like Converse, H&M and Evian among many others who’ve been redefining the meaning of products and art much faster than most art organizations. With their innovative art integration, they’ve become effective in creating a new breed of merchandise widely recognized as artist collaborations or ‘art collabs’. Blurring boundaries between art and commerce, the French fashion house Louis Vuitton has become one of the front-runners in this movement and have quite imaginatively diminished the divide between art and merchandise. The unprecedented popularity of their sold-out collaborations with avant-garde artists like Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and Yayoi Kusama have spoken for themselves.

In contrast, the majority of museums have only managed to widen the gap. By somehow turning desirable art into undesirable merchandise, they’ve turned their gift shops into uninspiring souvenir outlets. But while they’ve languished, successful commercial brands, thriving on being seen as innovative and relevant, have been savvy enough to stay ahead of the mainstream curve. By staying connected to groundbreaking designers, artists, creative directors, writers and photographers, they’ve been able to capture the ‘next big things’ and have stayed engaged in the necessary cultural and social dialogue that translates into greater popularity and greater revenues for their brands.

In our next post we’ll report back from the Venice Biennale, highlighting the latest in art fusion. See you then.

Drawing Club at Walker Open Field: A Collaborative Coloring Book, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.

uniqlo sponsors FREE Friday nights at Moma, NY, U.S.A.

SMS # 5: Neil Jenny, Bucks Americana William Copley x Dmitri Petrov, new museum, NY, u.S.A.

SMS # 6: Bernar Venet, Astrophysics: William Copley x Dmitri Petrov, new museum, NY, u.S.A

Drawing Club at Walker Open Field: A Collaborative Coloring Book, The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.

gift shop, Newseum, washington, D.C., u.s.a.

gift shop, toronto botanical gardens, toronto, ON, canada

Corporate Sponsorship 2.0

When corporations write a check to sponsor a cultural event only to have their logo displayed among many others on the back of a promotional booklet or a program, it’s clearly inconsistent with their marketing objectives. After all, in the ‘real’ world of day-today business, banks are competitors – each with a marketing mandate to stand out – same as the cable companies and credit cards they share the back of the pamphlet with. Yet in the ‘sponsorship’ world, they appear on promotional materials as unintentional allies. Every brand wants to be remembered for supporting art and culture. Yet, by using a hands-off, write-a-check approach, the opposite becomes reality. Each corporation’s name remains buried with all the others, completely unnoticed and forgotten.

As Todd Hirsch, in his recent Globe & Mail article ‘Corporate Sponsors of the Arts Are Missing Creative Opportunities’ points out, “corporate sponsorship of the arts has the potential to become something much more powerful than the feel-good recognition on opening night.” Indeed. To be noticed and remembered, corporations need to start using a hands-on approach. In other words, they need to stop behaving as passive sponsors and start acting as active collaborators. Instead of building long-distance corporate relationships, they need to start working closely with the organizations they support, be it arts or culture, and start developing something with greater meaning that is more memorable and therefore more valuable.

According to Ai Weiwei, the Chinese contemporary artist and activist, “The artist is an enemy of … general sensibilities “. These so-called ‘general sensibilities,’ are also an enemy of each and every brand. Brands today need to create new sensibilities and reinvent continuously to remain relevant and consequently memorable and desirable. If Mother Nature is about survival of the fittest, then brands are about survival of the most imaginative and innovative.

What could such an innovative approach look like? Imagine what local artists or filmmakers could create in collaboration with, say, a financial services sponsor in support of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). Imagine something astounding, beautiful, thought-provoking and worthy of sharing. Now imagine the integration opportunities with TIFF membership packages and the TIFF shop and the sponsor’s branches across the GTA.

An artist collaboration would definitely make the sponsor stand apart –by taking an active and innovative role in the world of corporate sponsorships, and consequently by bringing its brand greater visibility and relevance. And the same would hold true for TIFF, being perceived as an even a more cutting-edge Canadian cultural household name. It’s a corporate sponsorship where everyone is a winner, even consumers who simply want to purchase the unique art collaboration ‘piece’.

The opportunities and advantages of hands-on corporate sponsorship are vast. First off, so few corporations go beyond the standard sponsorship ‘show my logo’ approach that doing something different would in and of itself generate new meaning. Second, seeing what’s perceived as a more traditional corporation being transformed by an art-fusion collaboration would suggest both a human and modern approach – invaluable for companies looking to amplify those aspects of their image.

We believe not before long we begin to lay ‘corporate sponsorships’ to rest and start nurturing ‘creative collaborations’. It’s time.

In our next post, we’ll be looking at the future of gift shops. Until then.

hands off’ ‘show my logo’ approach

Jennifer Aniston at Life Of Crime premiere at the TIFF in Toronto

COMME des GARçONs ‘HANDS ON’ approach in support of Ai WeiWei ‘UNDERGROUND’

Ai Weiwei x Comme des Garçons

BANANA REPUBLIC ‘HANDS ON’ approach in Support of Marriage Equality

HRC & Levi Strauss & Co. ‘HANDS ON’ approach in Support of Marriage Equality

Why art fusion’s early adopters are women

Art-fusion collaborations, if done right, come with a universal set of visual and emotional characteristics that are easy to identify with. For example, the ‘dotted’ art fusion between Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama can be experienced as playful and imaginative, yet elegant and sophisticated. On the other hand, the ‘pure’ art fusion between Toronto’s über hip furniture store Mjök and the Italian designer Luca Nichetto, or the French mineral water brand Evian’s “Eau Couture” bottles have been perceived as beautiful and minimal, yet practical and sentimental. Belgian fashion designer Raf Simmons ‘rebel’ collaboration with Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby could be characterized as disobedient, yet upscale.

In other words, the secret behind a successful art fusion is to effectively unite the emotional with its visual opposite and entwine each into an engaging story. Women, being so closely connected to the nature of storytelling, have proven to be the first to understand and engage, becoming relentless consumer champions of art-fusion collaborations. Certainly, seeing and experiencing a variety of contrasts is something women are comfortable with and even drawn to. It’s no wonder then that women have become art fusion’s early adopters.

As a result, women have also become targets for the majority of them. Whether it’s a matter of feeling or seeing, women have been able to distinguish and appreciate art fusion more readily than men, particularly the ones that stand out. Be it running shoes or a car collaboration, paradoxically targeted at men, it is women who tend to respond first, with great enthusiasm and readiness to buy in.

After all, art collaborations embody the universal yearnings for beauty, grace and imagination. Raf Simons and Sterling Ruby’s hand-painted bags and coats could easily dress women. Women could also outnumber men in purchasing the highly-priced, limited-edition Dom Pérignon Champagne “Balloon Venus’ collaboration with Jeff Koons, despite the lack of gender bias in its presentation.

The lesson learned? Brands targeting women should sit up and take note while brands targeting men should keep a watchful eye. The tide is turning on this marketing trend and with every tipping point, comes mass acceptance. Marketers of all kinds should remember a few important details.

FIRST, women aren’t just early adopters of art fusion, they are early ‘spreaders’. With their innate sense of ‘showing & telling ‘ women have been known to magically (aka virally) spread the word of collaborations that excite and interest them. Something even a high-budget advertising campaign could not outperform.

SECOND, women, as sophisticated and communicative as they are, have nurtured an ability to sense a successful art fusion when they see one. However the opposite holds equally true; they recognize run-of-a mill, half-hearted attempts easily, either passing on their critique to friends and followers or ignoring the attempt all together.

THIRD, in each art-fusion collaboration, every detail counts, visible or not. Just as in a good story, it’s about what’s not being said, rather than about what is. Art-fusion is about storytelling, which is something women tend to navigate towards, and enjoy being seduced by.

And that’s what good marketing is all about isn’t it? Enjoyable seduction.

In our next post, we’ll be looking at the future of corporate sponsorships, or rather at the rise of ‘creative collaborations’. Until then.

Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton

George Clooney: “Yayoi Kusama depicted me covered in polka dots. She made me Snoopy!”

Elie Saab x Evian

Kate Moss for Raf Simons x Sterling Ruby

Alice Rohrwacher for Miu Miu

Miranda July for Miu Miu

So long store displays – Hello art installations

Fashion, often the most forward-looking and savvy of retail marketers, offers many valuable lessons to the rest of the retail industry. Fashion’s latest tutorial in the art of drawing a crowd could yet again be of great service to retailers who are ready and willing to learn, regardless of category. What’s the lesson you wonder?

A handful of pioneering fashion designers and brands, have started to put emphasis not only on designing new collections, but also on the way their latest ready-to-wear lines will be presented. Departing from the conventional use of mannequins in store displays, they’ve been outfitting each collection with its very own art installation. Simply put, it’s no longer only about the spectacle seen during Fashion Week in Paris, London or New York, but also about spectacles created directly in the retail stores in Chicago, Berlin or Shanghai. Why stray from the tried and true approach of merchandising, you ask?

As all retailers know, the competition between online and in-store traffic is growing increasingly fierce. Drawing consumers out of their homes and into your store now requires more and more marketing muscle. What the fashion industry has found is a new way to compete with online retail by providing irresistible experiences that can only be found in the physical stores. In addition to producing their own ready-to-wear collections, emerging fashion designers like Paris-based Simone Rocha or Tokyo-based Julien David have become known for taking on the additional creative task of designing their own store and often even the all-important window displays. Their installations reveal the designers’ conceptually driven motives that go well beyond the expected and have become a phenomenon fashion bloggers and journalists have started to eagerly anticipate.

London-based Selfridges and Dover Street Market, Paris-based Colette and Le Bon Marché, and Milan-based 10 Corso Como are among the department stores that have become known for pioneering the approach of presenting their collections as ever-changing art forms. Fashion designers are given free rein to design store spaces and window displays that are true experiences, drawing shoppers and social media attention even after closing hours.

In fashion, the name of the game is no longer only about new products, but also about new spaces – two equally strategic partners and one enormous force. As our eyes go to London, Paris and Milan for inspiration and appreciation, our marketing minds and creative hearts hope that more retail stores will join in by collaborating with local artists and designers to create their own unique store displays and window installations. What better, more soul-satisfying way to compete with online retail than with attention-drawing art right in the stores and on the streets?

In our next post, we’ll take a closer look at art fusion’s early adopters. See you soon.

SELFRIDGES LONDON & Simone Rocha

SELFRIDGES LONDONK & Simone Rocha

DOVER STREET MARKET NEW YORK & Simone Rocha

Louis Vuitton, TOKYO

UNDERCOVER, SHANGHAI

Dover street market ginza TOKYO & Julien david

Dover street market NEW YORK & Julien david

Do limited editions create limitless desire?

It’s not a secret that over the last decade, the popularity of art-fusion collaborations has grown dramatically. While the most talked-about collaborations seem to come and go in a flash of white-hot attention, the less successful ones linger behind in social-media silence, in hopes of one day selling out.

One decision a brand embarking on an art-fusion collaboration must face is whether to make their product plentiful and part of their regular line, or to conceive it as a capsule collection (AKA, limited edition). Is the potential for higher demand worth sacrificing the potential of moving a higher volume of product?

Let’s look at some examples.
In Comme des Garçons’ multiple collaborations with New York fashion brand, Supreme, the brands chose to create capsule collections. They also chose to make consumers jump through quite a few hoops in order to even become eligible to make their ‘must-have’ purchase. The pre-requisite for each Comme des Garçons x Supreme collaboration is that every online shopper must first apply to buy. Second, the keen online shopper must then wait until his or her name is chosen and pre-qualified for an online purchase. Last, only on the day the collection launches, the selected shopper is notified by email about his or her eligibility to order online while the limited quantities last.

While this may sound discouraging to many consumers, it’s important to recognize that to these brands’ target consumer, it is irresistible.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin.
H&M engages regularly in collaborations – with Martin Margiela, Isabel Marant and Lanvin, to name a few. Usually, on the day the launch, H&M packs its selected worldwide locations with immense amounts of the collection, creating a sense of plenty rather than scarcity. If the collection doesn’t sell extremely well in the first few days, the unsold pieces from the collection often remain scattered across the stores, while many of the sold pieces quickly make their way to eBay resellers.

If eBay can be considered a value indicator, then CDG x Supreme pieces clearly outmuscle the H&M collaborations. Not only by their outstanding resale value, but also by their distinctive promise that the collection will be worn only by a limited number of people on the streets, bringing prestige not only to the brands themselves, but also to their highly sophisticated customers.

So do the benefits of a capsule collection outweigh their smaller profit potential you ask? If art-fusion collaborations are about infusing newness and relevance while consequently increasing desire and reducing need to sell, then ‘less is more’ is the preferable formula. Consider it an investment in brand equity. Even for brands with deep pockets, doing highly selective and perhaps less frequent capsule collections can bring a higher return on their investment in the long run. Building a reputation for creating irresistible art-fusion collaborations that come in small numbers accompanied by high-demand is a dream more brands will eventually find worth pursuing.

In our next post, we’ll take a closer look into the disappearance of store displays and mannequins. See you then.

Neil Young Supreme Poster

Supreme x Undercover

Chloë Sevigny for Supreme x Comme des Garçons

Supreme x Comme des Garçons

Supreme x comme des garçons

H&M x Maison Martin Margiela

H&M x Isabel Marant