London has a reputation for harnessing the future of fashion and that’s exactly what it did when Dover Street Market’s department store-turned-exhibition cropped up in Mayfair in 2004. The innovative retailer later expanded to the US and Asia, now adding Paris to its lineup.
Dover Street Market was founded by Rei Kawakubo of the Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons and her husband Adrian Joffe. After targeting New York City, Tokyo, Singapore, Beijing and Los Angeles, it makes perfect sense that the inventive fashion retailer is opening up shop in the Paris district of Le Marais on 24 May.
Alike its stores across the globe, the new Paris location will feature designers and brands at the intersection of luxury fashion and counterculture as well as art installations.
Joffe, who serves as Dover Street Market’s President, said: “It will not be only another shop.
“It is in fact already a building in which we hope to build and open a new pathway ahead, building on everything we have accomplished and daring to tread in the unknown. A building that already contains a brand development division and spaces to do all kinds of actions to create an energy-synergy syntax.”
The new 1,100 sqm location marks a departure from the existing Dover Street Market outposts, whereby brands have been separated into individual concessions. Here, the entire space, including the Rosé cafe, was designed by Kawakubo.
Dover Street Market Paris is housed in the 17th-century Hôtel de Coulanges – a contrast to previous outposts. The store design doesn’t focus on selling garments, in fact, no clothes will be visible from the street. Rather, Kawakubo designed the space for shoppers to immerse themselves in.
Brands on offer include Comme des Garçons roster, of course, as well as Simone Rocha, Rick Owens, Prada, JW Anderson, Wales Bonner, Willy Chavarria and more.
An exhibition by Paolo Roversi, a long-time Comme des Garçons collaborator, will be open to the public from opening.
Artworks by Paolo Roversi at Dover Street Market
