Long Live Shopping – Why The Future Of British Retail Is Brighter Than You Might Think
If you’ve never visited Dover Street Market in London before, you might be forgiven for walking past its storefront on Haymarket, what with the giant white balls that fill its windows. If you look closely between the gaps of the spheres, you’ll see slivers of Simone Rocha peeking through. Yes, this is, in fact, a store that sells clothes. There’s no main front door. Call it IYKYK, as those who frequent DSM – and there are many – will obviously know to walk around the corner to the entrance on Orange Street and be greeted warmly. ‘At Dover Street Market, we are taught core values that encourage us to approach our visitors (and each other) with respect and kindness,’ explains Davinder Matharu, who is responsible for the friendly welcoming of guests at DSM.
Immediately, you’re confronted by what Rei Kawakubo, the founder of both Dover Street Market and Comme des Garçons, calls the ‘beautiful chaos’. Streetlamps bent over fine-jewellery vitrines. A pile of café chairs with Stephen Jones hats hanging off them. The central exhibition space always in flux, playing host to special installations by designers and creatives (at time of writing, it’s Swiss artist Roman Signer’s collaboration with Comme des Garçons). And you’ll find as much room and imagination devoted to young brands, including Wales Bonner, as you would to a heavyweight name such as Gucci, along with some unlikely juxtapositions: a utilitarian Labour and Wait apron next to hand-distressed textiles by Elena Dawson, for example.
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I remember walking into the original Dover Street Market location (back when it was actually on Dover Street) as a university student in 2004 and feeling as if I was welcome to enter and learn as well as buy. The knowledgeable staff would be my unsuspecting teachers. Alongside other fashion enthusiasts, I’d skulk around rails filled with Alaïa, Comme des Garçons show pieces and Raf Simons, looking at the construction of garments and fabric-care labels, or I’d happen upon a book signing and feel a proximity to an industry that I could only dream of working in.
Growing up in London, I learnt about fashion through its great shops. There was the alternative weirdness of Pineal Eye and Kokon To Zai in Soho, where I became obsessed with designers including Bernhard Willhelm and Walter Van Beirendonck. Or the champagne- swilling glamour of a day at Harvey Nichols in the 1990s and early Noughties, where I’d go to people-watch. The cute kitsch of The Shop, where I bought a Marc by Marc Jacobs belt I’d saved for. Then there was the impeccable curation of Joan Burnstein (affectionately known as Mrs B) at the department store she founded, Browns. As the dot-com boom boomed, and we saw the rise of new e-commerce players, sadly many of thosephysical doors closed. And yet, fast forwardto 2024 and those very e-commercegiants are now faltering, with Matchesrecently going bust and financial troubleforecasted at Net-a-Porter and FarFetch.
Stavros Karelis, founder of Machine-A, another cult-favourite shop in Soho with an eye for raw design talent, pinpoints why we’ve become disillusioned with online shopping. ‘Customers stopped feeling relevance to what they were experiencing online. When you look at images of Photoshopped products, or when they are the result of algorithms, there is something so transactional about it,’ he says.
Every season, DSM performs what it calls tachiagari (meaning ‘begin’ or ‘start’ in Japanese), which involves closing the store and then renewing it physically by bringing in different designers and showcasing fresh collaborations. ‘It’s a tradition that makes no financial sense,’ says Dickon Bowden, the vice president of Dover Street Market. ‘But this practice of closing and reopening is incredibly invigorating for the business and for the team,’ he adds. Likewise, while collaborations may be standard procedure in fashion, Dover Street Market has taken the concept to unprecedented levels, drawing queues of shoppers eager for its hype-worthy exclusives and in-the-know launches.
This is why the store is celebrating two decades of existence with an ever-loyal and sizeable fanbase. It now has outposts around the world: in New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles and, most recently, Paris. ‘The DNA has never changed – we have always wanted to make an exciting retail experience. Methods and details have naturally evolved over 20 years,’ says Adrian Joffe, who is married to Kawakubo and is the president of both Dover Street Market and Comme des Garçons. ‘It’s the intangibles of what we have here, which happened as a result of Kawakubo-san’s foundation, values and ethos that we work with on a daily basis,’ adds Bowden.
We’re turning to bricks-and-mortar idiosyncrasy once again, as the likes of Dover Street Market and Machine-A thrive in the face of adversity. But the cult that surrounds these stores can’t be achieved overnight. Over the years, I’ve developed my own specific DSM shopping ritual that nourishes not just my wardrobe, but my personal wellbeing. First, I go to the very top, where I can see the lesser-known Comme des Garçons lines such as Comme Comme, Comme des Garçons Girl and Tao, and racks full of Molly Goddard. I then work my way down, going through Sacai and Junya Watanabe and then having a nose around the more streetwear-focused basement floor and a browse in Idea Books, before seeing what damage I’ve done at the tills. Finally, I’ll go back up and have a calming tea and a slice of cake at Rose Bakery, the store’s resident café. Along the way, there will be insightful chats with the brilliant staff – many of whom I know by name – who all radiate that unmistakable feeling of family that makes Dover Street Market feel like a safe space. What they wear is often as interesting as what’s on display, and they seem to intuitively know what I’m hankering for without giving me the hard sell.
What does DSM look for in prospective team members? ‘It’s a sense of like-mindedness,’ says Bowden. ‘And that they have an affinity for what we do. The rest will come easily.’ Human connections are at the heart of the selection at speciality clothing stores, which trade in fostering and nurturing young talent but also espouse values that are missing from the mainstream fashion world. ‘I’ve been called an emotional buyer,’ said Karelis of Machine-A, whose rails are often full of names you are yet to recognise but have some kind of eye-catching detailing. ‘I love designers who take the high road in terms of technical skills, innovation and cultural relevance.’ If these shops lose customers along the way, so be it. ‘I’m fine with people coming in and walking straight out. You don’t create a community when you try to please everyone.’
For independent designers such asCecilie Bahnsen, the intuitive sense ofconnection these stores promote isimportant when establishing a business.‘Those buyers have such a personalrelationship with the consumers and thewoman who loves and wears the clothes.Those stores give you visibility, sincepeople will find and explore [the pieces]and become part of building you as abrand,’ she says. Bahnsen recalls receivinga handwritten letter from a customer whohad bought one her dresses at DoverStreet Market New York. ‘She wroteabout friendship and how much she lovedthe dress, and that she could tell how itwas made because she had a tailoring background. When I found out she was from Denmark, I wrote a physical letter back,’ she says.
Around the world, there are only a handful of stores that elicit a similar cult-like following, meaning they are better-equipped to endure the tumultuous highs and lows of luxury retail today. They all have characteristic signifiers that draw you in. At Merci in Paris, I think of lovely washed linens, tasteful interiors and the perfect boiled eggs in its café. In Milan, 10 Corso Como brings memories of walking into the ivy-covered courtyard, filled with wrought-iron furniture and monochrome branding artwork by Kris Ruhs, whose wife Carla Sozzani was the original founder. Nothing is assured, though, when even the most beloved shops fall prey to business constraints, including the inimitable boutiques Colette in Paris and Opening Ceremony in New York, both of which have shut in recent years.
‘I think it’s probably the hardest it’s ever been, because there’s so much uncertainty,’ says Bowden. ‘That discourages people from wanting to be creative, courageous, or do interesting things. What that means for us is that we need to work harder to think differently. We need to try to come up with different approaches for the people that we’re working with, in order to attempt, ultimately, to continue this inspirational retail concept that we have.’ That means not bending towards temporal trends and rapidly changing shopping habits and tastes. ‘What we do isn’t driven by data, because data only sees the past and the present, but fashion has always been about the future,’ says Karelis. ‘I’ve tried to stay away from hype and massive trends, because I don’t think they are the leaders.’
‘It’s interesting that you don’t just say, “I’m going shopping,” you say, “I’m going to DSM”,’ says Daisy Hoppen, who has been working with Dover Street Market for over a decade. She thinks the distinction is between merely buying something and gathering together with like-minded people in a communal space that just happens to be filled with beautiful things. If we are longing for a shopping experience that goes beyond the transactional, then what are we really looking for when we take the time to walk through that in-the-know side door? Maybe it’s the experience of swapping ideas and having conversations and encounters in real life, which feels even more precious and precarious today. ‘All we can do here is carry on doing what we believe in,’ said Joffe. ‘We have always felt that bricks and mortar is essential to the wellbeing of human- kind. People need to communicate and exchange ideas to live.’
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