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Social media is something that DSM has only recently started, they have Instagram and Twitter accounts for each of their stores. They have some room for improvement and they could change up their socials to reflect their store, as the pictures they post are very product based and they look very minimalistic and sleek, compared to the unique, artistic stores they have.

Co-founder Adrian Joffe has even said this about their website and social media 'to be honest, we don’t like it very much. But online is a service for people who don’t live in the six cities we do. We also hope it introduces DSM to people who don’t know us'

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Peter Jones is the exact opposite of DSM, they have very basic layouts with little to no creativity used throughout, the spacing of products is either too close together or too far apart. There is nothing in Peter Jones that makes you want to stay in the store for very long. The window displays are very basic and the way they have laid out the outfits on the mannequins makes no sense, in one window they had a suit and on the rail next to it was two casual jumper and trousers which didn't match at all. DSM is the complete opposite as they spend a lot of time and energy to ensure the displays are perfect and make sense in terms of similar brands on the same floor.

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Selfridges is similar in ways to DSM as both department stores spend a lot of time creating very unusual and artistic displays, however the main difference between them both is that Selfridges opted of the displays to carry a much more luxury and sleek look to the displays, unlike DSM which is very anti-luxury in terms of their methods of Visual Merchandising. Selfridges also keeps their 'out-there' designs to a minimal by either only having a small section per brand of something which is unusual, for example in Moschino, they have used an oversized teddy as their prop, whereas in DSM they don't have a limit to how unusual their displays can get.

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The first Dover Street market that opened was in September of 2004, in Dover Street, Mayfair. This store is the exact same concept as the current DSM in London, and the reason they moved was due to them finding a much cheaper space which was three times the space.

This article from 'The Spaces' by Tomo Taka, is written about the movement of DSM from the original store located on Dover Street, in Mayfair, to its current place in Haymarket. This article talks about how the new concept store now had 'three times the space of its previous home' and how it's opening in 2016 introduced 'a high-end retail offering to Haymarket' as this area is well known for its theatres, bars and clubs.

Taka has spoken about how this relocation of DSM looked, a good quote to summerise the idea behind this concept store was said by the creative director Rei Kawakubo, she states that she wanted to create a store of 'beautiful chaos'.

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Fashion mecca Dover Street Market has moved away from its eponymous London roots to a Grade II-listed building nearby on Haymarket.

The concept store's new five-level site - originally built for Burberry in 1912 - provides three times the space of its previous home. Its opening also introduces a high-end retail offering to Haymarket, which is better known for its theatre, bars and clubs.

Comme des Garçons creative director Rei Kawakubo, who conceived the idea behind Dover Street Market, designed the new space, including its common areas, changing rooms and some of the installations that dot the store.

'I want to create a kind of market where various creators from various fields gather together and encounter each other in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful chaos - the mixing up and coming together of different kindred souls who all share a strong personal vision,' said Kawakubo.

Her installations include the ground floor's Dover Street Market hut, made from wood and corrugated iron and the first-floor lighting, comprising clusters of long LEDs dropping from the ceiling in a work called 'Frozen Waterfall'.

Alongside these modern interventions to the space, the creative director also left the building's exterior, ceilings, windows and grand central staircase untouched.

Brands with their own space within the store were allowed to design their patch as they saw fit. Jeweller Repossi, for example, enlisted the help of architect Rem Koolhaas' OMA and AMO design teams while milliner Stephen Jones created a structure of interlocking chairs to display his pieces.

Lighting designers Thierry Dreyfus, Daniel Young, Christian Giroux and Pedro Cabrita Reis were also brought on board to create illuminating installations for the space.

Just as in the previous store, Rose Bakery also finds a spot in Dover Street Market on the top floor of the building.

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Dover Street Market moves to a new home on London's Haymarket - The Spaces

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Fashion mecca Dover Street Market has moved away from its eponymous London roots to a Grade II-listed building nearby on Haymarket. The concept store's new five-level site - originally built for Burberry in 1912 - provides three times the space of its previous home.

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This shows the cost of average prices in Mayfair and thus establishments why DSM said costs were too high here and therefore moved their store to Haymarket.

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London Charing Cross Station is 0.78 miles away.
Address: London Charing Cross station, The Strand, London, Greater London, WC2N 5HF
London Charing Cross is situated on the South Eastern Main Line.

London Charing Cross Station is staffed on a full time basis.
Directions from Dover Street to London Charing Cross Rail Station
View Direct Services and Journey Times

London Victoria Station is 0.92 miles away.
Address: London Victoria station, Victoria Street, London, Greater London, SW1V 1JU
London Victoria is situated on the Chatham Main Line.

London Victoria Station is staffed on a full time basis.
Directions from Dover Street to London Victoria Rail Station
View Direct Services and Journey Times

Destination

Average Time (Median)

London Waterloo Station is 1.27 miles away.
Address: London Waterloo station, Station Approach, London, Greater London., SE1 8SW
London Waterloo is situated on the Portsmouth Direct line|South Western Main Line|Waterloo to Reading Line (Windsor Lines)|New Guildford Line|South Eastern Main Line.

London Waterloo Station is staffed on a full time basis.
Directions from Dover Street to London Waterloo Rail Station
View Direct Services and Journey Times

Destination

Average Time (Median)

London Marylebone Station is 1.34 miles away.
Address: London Marylebone station, Great Central House, Melcombe Place, London, NW1 6JJ
London Marylebone is situated on the Chiltern Main Line|London to Aylesbury Line and is managed by Chiltern Railway.

London Marylebone Station is staffed on a part time basis.
Directions from Dover Street to London Marylebone Rail Station
View Direct Services and Journey Times

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What you need to know about Dover Street in the Urban Area of Mayfair

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London Charing Cross Station is 0.78 miles away. Address: London Charing Cross station, The Strand, London, Greater London, WC2N 5HF London Charing Cross is situated on the South Eastern Main Line. London Charing Cross Station is staffed on a full time basis.

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This article talks about the movement of DSM from Mayfair to Haymarket.
It talks about how it has benefited the store and has saved them money by moving. It also talks about how DSM wanted to keep the same style as before on the interior to ensure that the movement wouldn't affect the customers view of DSM.
The main aim of this article is to describe and demonstrate the creative visual merchandising of the stores.

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Japanese fashion brand Comme des Garçons has relocated the London branch of its Dover Street Market store to a heritage-listed building on the city's Haymarket (+ slideshow).

The new Dover Street Market store is located at 18-22 Haymarket inside a Grade II-listed building erected by Burberry founder Thomas Burberry in 1912.

Similarly to its original location on Dover Street, the overall interior has been conceived by Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo. However, all the represented brands with dedicated spaces were given the freedom to design them as they saw fit.

Kawakubo was keen to "embrace and enhance" the building's original features, and as a result the exterior, original ceilings, windows, and central staircase remain untouched.

"I want to create a kind of market where various creators from various fields gather together and encounter each other in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful chaos; the mixing up and coming together of different kindred souls who all share a strong personal vision," she said.

Comme des Garcons Aoyama installation by Studio Toogood

Clothing, accessory and shoe brands are split over each of the store's five levels, as well as a bakery and numerous installations.

Permanent spaces on the ground floor include Comme des Garçons' Homme Plus label, which was constructed from reclaimed shipping containers. A "Birds Nest Perfume Tower" is used to display all fragrances from Comme des Garçons Parfums.

An area for Jewellery brand Repossi was designed by Rem Koolhaas' OMA and AMO teams. Pieces by British designer Simone Rocha, who has created a collection to celebrate the store's opening, are displayed inside a clear Perspex room.

On the first floor, garments and accessories by J W Anderson hang from a children's playground, which was inspired by a similar one in the designer's home town in Northern Ireland.

Leather goods brand Delvaux's space was hand painted by an artist, while Dior based its area on the set of its haute couture Spring Summer 2016 show.

An installation by artist Pirosmani is also located on the first floor in the form of a wraparound artwork.

Brands including Craig Green and Gosha Rubchinskiy have permanent spaces in the store's basement, alongside NikeLab and Palace Skateboards.

The original Dover Street Market opened in September 2004 in London's Mayfair. Its new Haymarket location is to open its doors to the public on 19 March 2016, after the original store closed just over a week before.

"The biggest thing is that it is three times the size," vice president Dickon Bowden told online publication Womens Wear Daily. "We will be familiar, yet new and different at the same time."

"Each floor has its own personality and its own sort of feeling. The intention is to take and transpose all that feeling and personalities across to the new store - plus inject it with some newness," he continued.

There are now three Dover Street Markets; one in London, a second in Tokyo and an outpost New York that opened in 2013.

Designer Faye Toogood previously designed an installation comprising stacked plaster blocks, raw concrete walls and copper pipes to display shoes inside the Dover Street store.

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Dover Street Market opens new store on London's Haymarket

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Japanese fashion brand Comme des Garçons has relocated the London branch of its Dover Street Market store to a heritage-listed building on the city's Haymarket (+ slideshow). The new Dover Street Market store is located at 18-22 Haymarket inside a Grade II-listed building erected by Burberry founder Thomas Burberry in 1912.

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This article is taken from an interview from Forbes magazine between the CEO Adrian Joffe and interviewer, Grace Banks.
They cover topics such as the movement from Dover Street Market to Haymarket in London, and why the CEO thinks the store has become.
This article is useful as it can give an overview of Joffe's thoughts on DSM and how he wants to progress it to move with the times.

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'At the new Street Market. On 22 March Joffe and his partner, Street to Haymarket, bringing their now world-famous collection of brands with them, from Street Market Haymarket location, we simply carry on trying to make the retail experience stimulating and modern' says Adrian Joffe, co-founder and CEO of Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo, relocated their London outpost from Dover Vetements and Molly Goddard to Phoebe English and Simone Rocha. Here, Joffe talks about the importance of bricks and mortar in a digital age, brand collaborations and the cheapening of the term 'concept store'.

Why did you decide to move the Dover Street Market location to Haymarket?

It was simple. The rents went too high in Dover Street and we were offered a huge building in Haymarket which was three times bigger. We needed more space.
You're known for being one of the first 'concept stores'. What does that description mean to you now and what can people expect from the Haymarket location?
I actually think we are no longer what used to be call a concept store. The term is out of date. What does concept store mean anyway? The word Concept, like the word , has lost all its meaning. At the new in the Haymarket, we simply carry on trying to make the retail experience stimulating and modern, where the relationships between us and the brands we share our space with, as well as between our staff and the customers is of prime importance. We are a simple clothes shop that endeavours to provide a wonderful selection of the best brands, carefully curated, in an atmosphere of beautiful chaos created by a mix of exciting visual experiences in the context of a heritage building given a new lease of life. The interesting details are too numerous to mention, but include works by lighting artists, photographers, artists, exhibitions in the stairwell, a giant metal dinosaur, all of which are integrated into the fabric of the store, and not just there for their own sake, as in a gallery. Brick and mortar still offers something different in 2016, the experience we aim to provide cannot be given on line.
How is the London Haymarket store different to your other locations across the world, such as Beijing and New York?
The building is different, and it is the biggest one of all our stores, so the feeling will be different but still recognisable as a DSM. The types of offerings from the brands are the same but there are much more of them at Haymarket.
You've pioneered collaborations that have shaped fashion, but culture too. Most recently Idea Books. How did your partnership with Idea Books come about?
We started selling their books slowly, and our friendship and collaborations just got deeper and deeper. I have no idea why it's been so popular, we just do what we do. We don't do market research or have a marketing team. Perhaps people like coming out and talking to people and seeing amazing unexpected things and sharing a point of view.
What have been your favourite collaborations to date?
Every collaboration we do is done with sincerity and intensity. We just do the ones that feel right and have meaning.. nothing forced or contrived. And always with people we like. We want to continue with these collaborations in the future, get stronger and stronger, maintain a successful business, keep moving forwards, and open one or two more stores max, in a few years perhaps.
Doverstreetmarket.com

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Six Questions with Dover Street Market CEO Adrian Joffe

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Dover Street Market Haymarket, image courtesy Dover Street Market 'At the new Dover Street Market Haymarket location, we simply carry on trying to make the retail experience stimulating and modern' says Adrian Joffe, co-founder and CEO of Dover Street Market. On 22 March Joffe and his partner, Comme des Garçons founder [...]

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This article from Dazed is an A-Z of DSM, they have presented each letter with a word that best reflects DSM and then gives an in-depth explanation of how this depicts the department store.

This is useful to me as it demonstrated huge amounts of history and insights to the store that you otherwise may not have found.

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As the legendary store relocates to Haymarket, we chronicle everything you need to know about it

Fashion, it has been said, is an industry populated by the people who never quite fitted in at school. If that's the case, then Dover Street Market - the radical retail space founded by Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe of Comme des Garçons - is the metaphorical locker room, the place where outsiders can duck out of the real world and be welcomed into an environment full of people just like them. When they founded DSM in 2004, Kawakubo and Joffe threw out the rulebook that dictated how a luxury store should look, and with it the totalitarian homogeneity that apparently declared that every one of a fashion house's shops across the globe should have walls the exact same hue, or come with identical imagery on display.

Instead, inspired by the riotous beginnings of the now-demolished Kensington Market - a one-building hub of British style and subculture for four decades - they created a place where they could sell their own designs alongside those of their peers, nurturing and supporting emerging talent as they did so. After a slow start (Joffe says it took a good few years for people to get to grips with what they were trying to do) the business boomed, with shoppers and industry vets alike recognising the brilliant harmony in the way artistic expression and commercial potential coexisted within its walls. So great is the power of DSM that it's become a synecdoche - say the words 'Dover Street' to anyone with even a passing interest in fashion and they'll finish your sentence 'Market'.

This weekend, however, DSM is moving from the street that gave it its name. Having outgrown its original location (and facing tripled rent costs) the beloved store has found a new home on Haymarket, and looks set to transform the street from a tourist back alley into a creative mecca - and the £500m being pumped into the area by the Crown Estate won't hurt either. Ahead of its grand opening tomorrow, get familiar with the ins and outs of the world's most boundary-breaking shop - from impromptu Patti Smith performances to Gosha Rubchinskiy fanboys and its infamous Market Market archive sales.
A IS FOR: ARTS
Since its inception over a decade ago, DSM has brilliantly balanced the fine line between concept and consumption. A strong part of this is the connections it has forged with creators, challenging preconceptions of what a retail space should be by transforming it into a place where art and shopping can co-exist. Names including notorious art duo Jake and Dinos Chapman, punk graphic artist Jamie Reid, the Keith Haring Foundation and set designer Gary Card have contributed windows, while DSM has collaborated with the Frieze Art Fair, the Michael Hoppen Gallery and the ICA to showcase work throughout the store.
B IS FOR: BEAUTIFUL CHAOS
Two words that come up time and time again when discussing Dover Street? "Beautiful chaos." First used by Kawakubo when describing the store back in 2004, the phrase epitomises the visionary nature of DSM, a place where different people from different creative worlds come together to shop side by side, where the spaces created by designers are as important as the clothes housed within them, and where you might just find yourself trying something on in an old portacabin turned changing room or paying at a tin hut till. As Joffe recently told The Business of Fashion, "We're not a company that makes five-year plans." Their approach is more spontaneous, intuitive and creative than that.

"In Japan recently, Burberry opened a multi-million dollar flagship store. (Dover Street Market) will be the antithesis of that" - Rei Kawakubo

C IS FOR: CONCRETE
"In Japan recently, Burberry opened a multi-million dollar flagship store," Rei Kawakubo told Susannah Frankel in Dazed's September 2004 issue. "(Dover Street Market) will be the antithesis of that. Fortunately, we haven't got a lot of money so we can't afford marble floors. We have to find an idea that won't cost too much." When it comes to interiors, the manifesto for DSM was deliberately anti-luxury. This has extended not just to the original store, where the floors were poured concrete, but to Haymarket, where the existing wooden floors have been replaced by the industrial material.
D IS FOR: DOVER STREET
A Mayfair street known for its private members clubs might seem like an unlikely place for one of the world's most forward-thinking retail stores, but Dover Street has a rich cultural history. As well as the street itself housing several galleries, the DSM premises were formerly home to the ICA, who credit the building with being the birthplace of pop art and Brutalist architecture, the meeting place of the Independent Group, and where, according to their website, "some of the most important shows in the history of post-war British art" were staged, "as well as ground-breaking exhibitions by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock."
E IS FOR: EGALITARIAN
One of the most remarkable elements of DSM is its market mentality, the way that brands come together under one roof with nothing to distinguish a newly-stocked, emerging designer from one of fashion's most established names. As Joffe said in the new issue of AnOther Magazine, "It's true that we don't distinguish between men and women, cheap and expensive, new, strong creation and timeless tradition, and we don't dumb down to the lowest common denominator in terms of the desires and aspirations of our customer."
F IS FOR: FLOORS
The original store was divided across six floors, from the Basement on -1, which housed contemporary menswear, sneakers and IDEA, to the ground floor with its perfume tower, the glittering mirrored Saint Laurent space on the third floor, and the balcony of the Rose Bakery on the fourth. The new Haymarket store will have five stories, with each floor having its own theme and installation. There's "Frankenstein" by Catherine Wagner in the Basement, while on the ground floor will be the iconic DSM hut, the first will have gold panelling conceived by Comme des Garçons with Pirosmani, the second a metal dinosaur designed by Kawakubo, and the third another installation by the designer.

G IS FOR: GINZA
Although a collaborative store in Beijing with Chinese retailers IT was opened in 2011, followed by a New York Store in 2013, the first DSM outside of London was established in Tokyo's Ginza district in 2006. Arranged across seven stories, the store came with replica huts mirroring those in London, and is a place Kawakubo has said that she hopes "fashion becomes fascinating."
H IS FOR: HAYMARKET
"It's bloody huge." So said Adrian Joffe of DSM's new Haymarket store, which safe to say, is something of an upgrade. With a colossal 31,000 square feet of floor space (that's over 20,000 square feet bigger than the original DSM), the shop is located in a listed building a stone's throw from Piccadilly that was built in 1911 and was, for a over a hundred years, the HQ of Burberry. In preparation for the opening, the original doors at the front of the building have been relocated to a more low-key side-street, and photographs of the renovation have been drip-fed via the AnOther Magazine Instagram page. Original inhabits Burberry will be present too, with a range of archive trenches which have been redesigned by Kawakubo.
I IS FOR: IDEA
Founded by David Owen and Angela Hill, IDEA are the beloved booksellers of DSM, who previously took up residence in the shop's Basement. Selling everything from limited edition photobooks by the likes of Vetements, Gosha Rubchinskiy and Willy Vanderperre (to name just a few recent examples), to rare, archival magazines and a slew of influential 'superbooks', they are renowned for their brilliant curation and equally brilliant Instagram captions. If you're in the market for one of their famed tote bags, IDEA will be pride of place in the new Haymarket store, with some exciting (and top secret) new launches planned for 2016.
J IS FOR: JOFFE
Dover Street's patriarch, if such an authoritarian concept could ever be aligned with a place of radicalism. The South African-born Adrian Joffe is the partner of Rei Kawakubo, having joined the company in 1987 and married the designer in 1992. Joffe speaks five languages (including Japanese and Tibetan) and acts as Kawakubo's translator - verbalising her ideas to the press even in her absence. As the president of both Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market, Joffe oversees the company and is responsible for its commercial growth.

"(Rei Kawakubo) can't check all the brands. If it were only things she likes, there'd be nothing in it" - Adrian Joffe

K IS FOR: KAWAKUBO
After almost forty years in fashion, it feels like the inimitable Rei Kawakubo - whose very presence at a fashion show can spark headlines, as it did at Gosha Rubchinskiy's latest runway back in January - really needs no introduction. When it comes to DSM, she is involved on a visual level rather than a day-to-day one, directing the aesthetics and creative point of view of the stores. "She can't check all the brands," Joffe recently told the Financial Times. "If it were only things she likes, there'd be nothing in it."
L IS FOR: LIGHTING
Lighting will be a key part of the new Haymarket store, with Kawakubo personally inviting artists from across the globe to create installations that will go far beyond the practical purpose of illuminating merchandise. A photograph posted to the DSM Instagram shows a series of neon lights suspended like modern stalactites from the ceiling. "They will be works of art in their own right," Joffe told AnOther. "I hope it works."
M IS FOR: MARKET MARKET
Rare, beloved events that come around only every few years, a Market Market is an official DSM jumble sale, where unsold archive stock is piled (literally) into relatively far-flung locations for friends and family to rummage through. This isn't your ordinary fashion clear out or sample sale - one year the theme was Cardboard City, with boxes upon boxes piled up and transformed into art installations (and plenty of Comme for 70% off the RRP, of course).
N IS FOR: NEW BEGINNINGS
Tachiagari, meaning "beginning" or "start" was the name that was formerly given to DSM's twice annual revamp, where the store closes down for a few days, reopening with new collections, designer areas and curated spaces. While stock is updated frequently, this closure was conceived from the beginning as a key part of Kawakubo and Joffe's vision, provoking seasonal changes that go beyond the clothes on the rails and usher in an entire store-wide rebirth.
O IS FOR: ON THE SPEAKERS
Of course, such an environment needs an equally impressive sound system. For the new store, the enigmatic Brooklyn-based sound artist Calx Vive has returned to collaborate with DSM once more, having previously created a score for DSMNY. The concept is to use different audio configurations on each floor, where "textural sounds will be combined and juxtaposed with a carefully curated selection of eclectic music". Thus the music will provide an aural translation of, you guessed it, beautiful chaos. Promised samples and inspirations include: "tunes of the fourth and fifth dimensions", "a gleaming bat cave with filament lights", and "continents that sank but left their mysteries".
P IS FOR: PATTI SMITH
In 2014, Ann Demeulemeester released her richly visual, 1000-plus page monograph with Rizzoli. To celebrate, an intimate launch at DSM was planned, where none other than Patti Smith arrived to do a reading from the introduction she had penned. After paying tribute to her designer friend, thanking her for sending her a treasured gift at a time " of deep loneliness", Smith began to perform - even playing an impromptu number with fellow musical icon PJ Harvey, who was in the crowd.

Q IS FOR: QUEUES
Queues have become something of a regular occurrence at DSM, thanks to the tendency of the brands or designers they stock to attract a certain cult or 'fanboy' following - two cases in point, Gosha Rubchinskiy and Supreme. The launch of the Russian designer-slash-photographer's 2015 book Youth Hotel saw hoards of his fans lining up outside the store, clamouring to get their hands on one of its 500 copies. Supreme's Damien Hirst collab triggered a similar phenomenon, as did the release of the Apple watch last year and Vetements' 2015 photo book.
R IS FOR: RUBCHINSKIY
It's not easy being a designer that operates beyond the "big four" fashion cities. Despite having sold collections at DSM (the first store outside of his native Russia) in the early days of his label, cult favourite Gosha Rubchinskiy ran into difficulty shipping large orders from Moscow. In 2012, he found support in Comme des Garçons, who agreed to help him with production, and since the brand has become an unstoppable force. DSM has become a mecca for teenage Gosha fans, desperate to get a piece of the latest drop ( according to the Business of Fashion, SS16 sold out in two days).
S IS FOR: STEPHEN JONES
In December 2005, Britain's most beloved hatmaker Stephen Jones took over the entire store for an immersive exhibition marking 25 years. Food-inspired hats were up on the third floor by Rose Bakery, while Hitchcockian pieces influenced by The Birds adorned the roof of the Market's tin hut. Along with collaborations for Comme des Garçons, hats on display were drawn from Jones's work for Walter Van Beirendonck, John Galliano, Givenchy, Lanvin and Jean Paul Gaultier, among others. To mark the exhibition, the entire Basement floor was hung with hats, available for only £40 - with £10 going to the M.A.C. Aids fund.
T IS FOR: TEA AND CAKE
Rose Carrarini (Joffe's sister) founded Rose Bakery in Paris with her French husband Jean-Charles in 2002. A daring proposition for a city with a proud culinary reputation - the small café was distinctly British - Rose Bakery proved to be a success. In 2005, they brought it to London, where it took up residence on DSM's sunny third floor, its long line of wooden tables often populated by an intriguing mix of visitors. The bakery (which can also be found in the New York and Ginza stores) will have its own expanded spot in Haymarket complete with a new menu, and has books, bags and aprons available to buy.
U IS FOR: UNCOMPROMISING
For such a renowned fashion institution, it might be surprising to know that DSM wasn't a success to begin with - after all, a concept so innovative took some getting used to (a good few years worth in this case). Still, Joffe and Kawakbo stuck to their guns. That DSM is a place of great creativity doesn't mean it's a free-for-all, however: designers have very strict rules when creating their in-store spaces. Walls cannot touch the inner structure of the building or be above a certain height, Primarily, they have to be cheap, so they can be changed often. But of course, rules are made to be broken...
V IS FOR: VETEMENTS
Since bursting onto the Paris scene for SS15 with a collection of thigh high boots and oversize tailoring, Vetements have gained an unprecedented amount of momentum, becoming one of the industry's most recognisable and buzzed-about brands. They've released a photo book with IDEA, and now to celebrate the new Haymarket store, head designer Demna Gvasalia is working on something new. "We are just starting an amazing project with good exciting energy and prospects," shares Gvasalia in the new issue of AnOther. "It's about to become a long-term partnership."

"We're looking forward. That's what's in our DNA and that's what we try to do. What is the future, what do people want, what can we give them that they don't know they want yet?" - Adrian Joffe

W IS FOR: WINDOWS
The names of the brands who have contributed windows to DSM reads like a fashion encyclopedia. Chanel has moved in with CC-decorated Union Jacks, set designer Gary Card has filled it with some caricature-like busts splattered with fluorescent paint and Dazed 100 designer Molly Goddard has turned it into an artist's studio, filled with paint pots, brushes and canvases. Rei Kawakubo even recreated reinterprets her cult art and photography magazine SIX by installing images from the archives behind the glass. The art and fashion worlds' most brilliant established and emerging talents have all been enlisted to recreate the space.
X IS FOR: X YEARS
For their tenth anniversary in 2014, DSM was focussed on looking to the future rather than the past, dubbing the birthday The Next Ten Years. In-store, designers created special, limited edition products (the range was dubbed Market Street Dover) and the window display featured Nicolas Ghesquière's first collection for Louis Vuitton. A special, limited edition of Werk Magazine was produced by founder Theseus Chan, featuring images of the store that had been reimagined to project a vision of the future. "We're looking forward," Joffe told Dazed. "That's what's in our DNA and that's what we try to do. What is the future, what do people want, what can we give them that they don't know they want yet?"
Y IS FOR: YOUTH
Both Joffe and Kawakubo are ardent supporters of fashion's next generations of talents and they've always put their money where their mouths are by stocking these designers. Whether it's Craig Green, Liam Hodges, Molly Goddard or Phoebe English, DSM has always been one of the places to discover and buy emerging brands. At a time where social media followers contribute to a young designer's credibility, Joffe isn't having any of it. "I don't care (about their social media following). We like things that are sometimes under the radar," he told AnOther. "For us, going back to the beginning, the product is the most important. We can't deceive the customers. We can't buy rubbish just because everybody's talking about it."
Z IS FOR: ZOOLOGY
As well as a selection of the finest products contemporary fashion can offer, the store has also housed various creatures - most famously, octopuses. In 2009, Les Trois Garçons installed a large black octopus with suckers that resembled Comme's infamous polka-dots and last year, Craig Green crafted one out of blue tarpaulin. In 2009, Tim Walker filled the window display with a rookery of penguins and earlier this year, the entrance played host to a glass cabinet containing some taxidermy birds. Strange creatures will also be found in the store's new Haymarket home - the second floor will house an enormous silver dinosaur designed by Rei Kawakubo.

Lead image: DSM photography Ryan O'Toole Collett (@ryanotoolecollett), portrait Chris Rhodes

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A definitive guide to Dover Street Market

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Fashion, it has been said, is an industry populated by the people who never quite fitted in at school. If that's the case, then Dover Street Market - the radical retail space founded by Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe of Comme des Garçons - is the metaphorical locker room, the place where outsiders can duck out of the real world and be welcomed into an environment full of people just like them.

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This article is from Hypebeast, they give a good overview of what DSM is, it's useful as it gives us an accurate description of what the store is and shows an insight into the types of brands they stock and also talks about the visual merchandising aspect to the store and how they change the displays bi-annually, as well as talking into the types of materials they have introduced.

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Home Dover Street Market

Dover Street Market

Dover Street Market is a multi-level retail space and concept store developed by Rei Kawakubo, and her husband, COMME des GARÇONS president Adrian Joffe. With installation-like spaces and special pop-ups, DSM houses all of CDG’s lines as well as a variety of other labels such as Vetements, Raf Simons, Junya Watanabe and Balanciaga and many more. The retail space is also known for its creative visual merchandising and bi-annual interior change signalling the change of season, which is inspired by “tachiagari,” (translating to “beginning” in Japanese). With poured concrete, bare ceilings and eclectic fittings, DSM introduced a famously industrial, anti-luxury aesthetic to the fashion retail sphere. Joffe has described its unique approach of mixing high and low-end brands as ‘beautiful chaos’. Each season, designers and artists are invited to produce and create visuals for the store, which results in a completely new look twice a year. Dover Street Market was first located in London, before expanding to locations in Tokyo, Beijing in collaboration with I.T., Singapore and New York.

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Dover Street Market is a multi-level retail space and concept store developed by Rei Kawakubo, and her husband, COMME des GARÇONS president Adrian Joffe. With installation-like spaces and special pop-ups, DSM houses all of CDG's lines as well as a variety of other labels such as Vetements, Raf Simons, Junya Watanabe and Balanciaga and many more.

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This article is based on the A-Z's of DSM, however gives a lot of key dates and facts relating to DSM's history which is very useful.

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As the legendary store relocates to Haymarket, we chronicle everything you need to know about it

Fashion, it has been said, is an industry populated by the people who never quite fitted in at school. If that's the case, then Dover Street Market - the radical retail space founded by Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe of Comme des Garçons - is the metaphorical locker room, the place where outsiders can duck out of the real world and be welcomed into an environment full of people just like them. When they founded DSM in 2004, Kawakubo and Joffe threw out the rulebook that dictated how a luxury store should look, and with it the totalitarian homogeneity that apparently declared that every one of a fashion house's shops across the globe should have walls the exact same hue, or come with identical imagery on display.

Instead, inspired by the riotous beginnings of the now-demolished Kensington Market - a one-building hub of British style and subculture for four decades - they created a place where they could sell their own designs alongside those of their peers, nurturing and supporting emerging talent as they did so. After a slow start (Joffe says it took a good few years for people to get to grips with what they were trying to do) the business boomed, with shoppers and industry vets alike recognising the brilliant harmony in the way artistic expression and commercial potential coexisted within its walls. So great is the power of DSM that it's become a synecdoche - say the words 'Dover Street' to anyone with even a passing interest in fashion and they'll finish your sentence 'Market'.

This weekend, however, DSM is moving from the street that gave it its name. Having outgrown its original location (and facing tripled rent costs) the beloved store has found a new home on Haymarket, and looks set to transform the street from a tourist back alley into a creative mecca - and the £500m being pumped into the area by the Crown Estate won't hurt either. Ahead of its grand opening tomorrow, get familiar with the ins and outs of the world's most boundary-breaking shop - from impromptu Patti Smith performances to Gosha Rubchinskiy fanboys and its infamous Market Market archive sales.
A IS FOR: ARTS
Since its inception over a decade ago, DSM has brilliantly balanced the fine line between concept and consumption. A strong part of this is the connections it has forged with creators, challenging preconceptions of what a retail space should be by transforming it into a place where art and shopping can co-exist. Names including notorious art duo Jake and Dinos Chapman, punk graphic artist Jamie Reid, the Keith Haring Foundation and set designer Gary Card have contributed windows, while DSM has collaborated with the Frieze Art Fair, the Michael Hoppen Gallery and the ICA to showcase work throughout the store.
B IS FOR: BEAUTIFUL CHAOS
Two words that come up time and time again when discussing Dover Street? "Beautiful chaos." First used by Kawakubo when describing the store back in 2004, the phrase epitomises the visionary nature of DSM, a place where different people from different creative worlds come together to shop side by side, where the spaces created by designers are as important as the clothes housed within them, and where you might just find yourself trying something on in an old portacabin turned changing room or paying at a tin hut till. As Joffe recently told The Business of Fashion, "We're not a company that makes five-year plans." Their approach is more spontaneous, intuitive and creative than that.

"In Japan recently, Burberry opened a multi-million dollar flagship store. (Dover Street Market) will be the antithesis of that" - Rei Kawakubo

C IS FOR: CONCRETE
"In Japan recently, Burberry opened a multi-million dollar flagship store," Rei Kawakubo told Susannah Frankel in Dazed's September 2004 issue. "(Dover Street Market) will be the antithesis of that. Fortunately, we haven't got a lot of money so we can't afford marble floors. We have to find an idea that won't cost too much." When it comes to interiors, the manifesto for DSM was deliberately anti-luxury. This has extended not just to the original store, where the floors were poured concrete, but to Haymarket, where the existing wooden floors have been replaced by the industrial material.
D IS FOR: DOVER STREET
A Mayfair street known for its private members clubs might seem like an unlikely place for one of the world's most forward-thinking retail stores, but Dover Street has a rich cultural history. As well as the street itself housing several galleries, the DSM premises were formerly home to the ICA, who credit the building with being the birthplace of pop art and Brutalist architecture, the meeting place of the Independent Group, and where, according to their website, "some of the most important shows in the history of post-war British art" were staged, "as well as ground-breaking exhibitions by Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock."
E IS FOR: EGALITARIAN
One of the most remarkable elements of DSM is its market mentality, the way that brands come together under one roof with nothing to distinguish a newly-stocked, emerging designer from one of fashion's most established names. As Joffe said in the new issue of AnOther Magazine, "It's true that we don't distinguish between men and women, cheap and expensive, new, strong creation and timeless tradition, and we don't dumb down to the lowest common denominator in terms of the desires and aspirations of our customer."
F IS FOR: FLOORS
The original store was divided across six floors, from the Basement on -1, which housed contemporary menswear, sneakers and IDEA, to the ground floor with its perfume tower, the glittering mirrored Saint Laurent space on the third floor, and the balcony of the Rose Bakery on the fourth. The new Haymarket store will have five stories, with each floor having its own theme and installation. There's "Frankenstein" by Catherine Wagner in the Basement, while on the ground floor will be the iconic DSM hut, the first will have gold panelling conceived by Comme des Garçons with Pirosmani, the second a metal dinosaur designed by Kawakubo, and the third another installation by the designer.

G IS FOR: GINZA
Although a collaborative store in Beijing with Chinese retailers IT was opened in 2011, followed by a New York Store in 2013, the first DSM outside of London was established in Tokyo's Ginza district in 2006. Arranged across seven stories, the store came with replica huts mirroring those in London, and is a place Kawakubo has said that she hopes "fashion becomes fascinating."
H IS FOR: HAYMARKET
"It's bloody huge." So said Adrian Joffe of DSM's new Haymarket store, which safe to say, is something of an upgrade. With a colossal 31,000 square feet of floor space (that's over 20,000 square feet bigger than the original DSM), the shop is located in a listed building a stone's throw from Piccadilly that was built in 1911 and was, for a over a hundred years, the HQ of Burberry. In preparation for the opening, the original doors at the front of the building have been relocated to a more low-key side-street, and photographs of the renovation have been drip-fed via the AnOther Magazine Instagram page. Original inhabits Burberry will be present too, with a range of archive trenches which have been redesigned by Kawakubo.
I IS FOR: IDEA
Founded by David Owen and Angela Hill, IDEA are the beloved booksellers of DSM, who previously took up residence in the shop's Basement. Selling everything from limited edition photobooks by the likes of Vetements, Gosha Rubchinskiy and Willy Vanderperre (to name just a few recent examples), to rare, archival magazines and a slew of influential 'superbooks', they are renowned for their brilliant curation and equally brilliant Instagram captions. If you're in the market for one of their famed tote bags, IDEA will be pride of place in the new Haymarket store, with some exciting (and top secret) new launches planned for 2016.
J IS FOR: JOFFE
Dover Street's patriarch, if such an authoritarian concept could ever be aligned with a place of radicalism. The South African-born Adrian Joffe is the partner of Rei Kawakubo, having joined the company in 1987 and married the designer in 1992. Joffe speaks five languages (including Japanese and Tibetan) and acts as Kawakubo's translator - verbalising her ideas to the press even in her absence. As the president of both Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market, Joffe oversees the company and is responsible for its commercial growth.

"(Rei Kawakubo) can't check all the brands. If it were only things she likes, there'd be nothing in it" - Adrian Joffe

K IS FOR: KAWAKUBO
After almost forty years in fashion, it feels like the inimitable Rei Kawakubo - whose very presence at a fashion show can spark headlines, as it did at Gosha Rubchinskiy's latest runway back in January - really needs no introduction. When it comes to DSM, she is involved on a visual level rather than a day-to-day one, directing the aesthetics and creative point of view of the stores. "She can't check all the brands," Joffe recently told the Financial Times. "If it were only things she likes, there'd be nothing in it."
L IS FOR: LIGHTING
Lighting will be a key part of the new Haymarket store, with Kawakubo personally inviting artists from across the globe to create installations that will go far beyond the practical purpose of illuminating merchandise. A photograph posted to the DSM Instagram shows a series of neon lights suspended like modern stalactites from the ceiling. "They will be works of art in their own right," Joffe told AnOther. "I hope it works."
M IS FOR: MARKET MARKET
Rare, beloved events that come around only every few years, a Market Market is an official DSM jumble sale, where unsold archive stock is piled (literally) into relatively far-flung locations for friends and family to rummage through. This isn't your ordinary fashion clear out or sample sale - one year the theme was Cardboard City, with boxes upon boxes piled up and transformed into art installations (and plenty of Comme for 70% off the RRP, of course).
N IS FOR: NEW BEGINNINGS
Tachiagari, meaning "beginning" or "start" was the name that was formerly given to DSM's twice annual revamp, where the store closes down for a few days, reopening with new collections, designer areas and curated spaces. While stock is updated frequently, this closure was conceived from the beginning as a key part of Kawakubo and Joffe's vision, provoking seasonal changes that go beyond the clothes on the rails and usher in an entire store-wide rebirth.
O IS FOR: ON THE SPEAKERS
Of course, such an environment needs an equally impressive sound system. For the new store, the enigmatic Brooklyn-based sound artist Calx Vive has returned to collaborate with DSM once more, having previously created a score for DSMNY. The concept is to use different audio configurations on each floor, where "textural sounds will be combined and juxtaposed with a carefully curated selection of eclectic music". Thus the music will provide an aural translation of, you guessed it, beautiful chaos. Promised samples and inspirations include: "tunes of the fourth and fifth dimensions", "a gleaming bat cave with filament lights", and "continents that sank but left their mysteries".
P IS FOR: PATTI SMITH
In 2014, Ann Demeulemeester released her richly visual, 1000-plus page monograph with Rizzoli. To celebrate, an intimate launch at DSM was planned, where none other than Patti Smith arrived to do a reading from the introduction she had penned. After paying tribute to her designer friend, thanking her for sending her a treasured gift at a time " of deep loneliness", Smith began to perform - even playing an impromptu number with fellow musical icon PJ Harvey, who was in the crowd.

Q IS FOR: QUEUES
Queues have become something of a regular occurrence at DSM, thanks to the tendency of the brands or designers they stock to attract a certain cult or 'fanboy' following - two cases in point, Gosha Rubchinskiy and Supreme. The launch of the Russian designer-slash-photographer's 2015 book Youth Hotel saw hoards of his fans lining up outside the store, clamouring to get their hands on one of its 500 copies. Supreme's Damien Hirst collab triggered a similar phenomenon, as did the release of the Apple watch last year and Vetements' 2015 photo book.
R IS FOR: RUBCHINSKIY
It's not easy being a designer that operates beyond the "big four" fashion cities. Despite having sold collections at DSM (the first store outside of his native Russia) in the early days of his label, cult favourite Gosha Rubchinskiy ran into difficulty shipping large orders from Moscow. In 2012, he found support in Comme des Garçons, who agreed to help him with production, and since the brand has become an unstoppable force. DSM has become a mecca for teenage Gosha fans, desperate to get a piece of the latest drop ( according to the Business of Fashion, SS16 sold out in two days).
S IS FOR: STEPHEN JONES
In December 2005, Britain's most beloved hatmaker Stephen Jones took over the entire store for an immersive exhibition marking 25 years. Food-inspired hats were up on the third floor by Rose Bakery, while Hitchcockian pieces influenced by The Birds adorned the roof of the Market's tin hut. Along with collaborations for Comme des Garçons, hats on display were drawn from Jones's work for Walter Van Beirendonck, John Galliano, Givenchy, Lanvin and Jean Paul Gaultier, among others. To mark the exhibition, the entire Basement floor was hung with hats, available for only £40 - with £10 going to the M.A.C. Aids fund.
T IS FOR: TEA AND CAKE
Rose Carrarini (Joffe's sister) founded Rose Bakery in Paris with her French husband Jean-Charles in 2002. A daring proposition for a city with a proud culinary reputation - the small café was distinctly British - Rose Bakery proved to be a success. In 2005, they brought it to London, where it took up residence on DSM's sunny third floor, its long line of wooden tables often populated by an intriguing mix of visitors. The bakery (which can also be found in the New York and Ginza stores) will have its own expanded spot in Haymarket complete with a new menu, and has books, bags and aprons available to buy.
U IS FOR: UNCOMPROMISING
For such a renowned fashion institution, it might be surprising to know that DSM wasn't a success to begin with - after all, a concept so innovative took some getting used to (a good few years worth in this case). Still, Joffe and Kawakbo stuck to their guns. That DSM is a place of great creativity doesn't mean it's a free-for-all, however: designers have very strict rules when creating their in-store spaces. Walls cannot touch the inner structure of the building or be above a certain height, Primarily, they have to be cheap, so they can be changed often. But of course, rules are made to be broken...
V IS FOR: VETEMENTS
Since bursting onto the Paris scene for SS15 with a collection of thigh high boots and oversize tailoring, Vetements have gained an unprecedented amount of momentum, becoming one of the industry's most recognisable and buzzed-about brands. They've released a photo book with IDEA, and now to celebrate the new Haymarket store, head designer Demna Gvasalia is working on something new. "We are just starting an amazing project with good exciting energy and prospects," shares Gvasalia in the new issue of AnOther. "It's about to become a long-term partnership."

"We're looking forward. That's what's in our DNA and that's what we try to do. What is the future, what do people want, what can we give them that they don't know they want yet?" - Adrian Joffe

W IS FOR: WINDOWS
The names of the brands who have contributed windows to DSM reads like a fashion encyclopedia. Chanel has moved in with CC-decorated Union Jacks, set designer Gary Card has filled it with some caricature-like busts splattered with fluorescent paint and Dazed 100 designer Molly Goddard has turned it into an artist's studio, filled with paint pots, brushes and canvases. Rei Kawakubo even recreated reinterprets her cult art and photography magazine SIX by installing images from the archives behind the glass. The art and fashion worlds' most brilliant established and emerging talents have all been enlisted to recreate the space.
X IS FOR: X YEARS
For their tenth anniversary in 2014, DSM was focussed on looking to the future rather than the past, dubbing the birthday The Next Ten Years. In-store, designers created special, limited edition products (the range was dubbed Market Street Dover) and the window display featured Nicolas Ghesquière's first collection for Louis Vuitton. A special, limited edition of Werk Magazine was produced by founder Theseus Chan, featuring images of the store that had been reimagined to project a vision of the future. "We're looking forward," Joffe told Dazed. "That's what's in our DNA and that's what we try to do. What is the future, what do people want, what can we give them that they don't know they want yet?"
Y IS FOR: YOUTH
Both Joffe and Kawakubo are ardent supporters of fashion's next generations of talents and they've always put their money where their mouths are by stocking these designers. Whether it's Craig Green, Liam Hodges, Molly Goddard or Phoebe English, DSM has always been one of the places to discover and buy emerging brands. At a time where social media followers contribute to a young designer's credibility, Joffe isn't having any of it. "I don't care (about their social media following). We like things that are sometimes under the radar," he told AnOther. "For us, going back to the beginning, the product is the most important. We can't deceive the customers. We can't buy rubbish just because everybody's talking about it."
Z IS FOR: ZOOLOGY
As well as a selection of the finest products contemporary fashion can offer, the store has also housed various creatures - most famously, octopuses. In 2009, Les Trois Garçons installed a large black octopus with suckers that resembled Comme's infamous polka-dots and last year, Craig Green crafted one out of blue tarpaulin. In 2009, Tim Walker filled the window display with a rookery of penguins and earlier this year, the entrance played host to a glass cabinet containing some taxidermy birds. Strange creatures will also be found in the store's new Haymarket home - the second floor will house an enormous silver dinosaur designed by Rei Kawakubo.

Lead image: DSM photography Ryan O'Toole Collett (@ryanotoolecollett), portrait Chris Rhodes

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A definitive guide to Dover Street Market

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Fashion, it has been said, is an industry populated by the people who never quite fitted in at school. If that's the case, then Dover Street Market - the radical retail space founded by Rei Kawakubo and Adrian Joffe of Comme des Garçons - is the metaphorical locker room, the place where outsiders can duck out of the real world and be welcomed into an environment full of people just like them.

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These images have been taken for the Switch Vol.35 No.4 Magazine with an exclusive section for DSM. These images are pages which show what DSM looks like and also included quotes from brands that have their stock there, such as Paul Smith.

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The Ginza store in Tokyo was the first store outside of the UK to open, it opened in 2012.
This article explains to those in Japan what DSM is and why it is such a 'bazaar concept' for them. It also talks about what the store looks like from the interior and how well the store its working with the usual upmarket stores in this district.

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Twisting white poles. Wooden tree sculptures. Metal cages. Giant insects. And yes, an elephant.

This may not sound like the standard decor of a fashion shop, particularly in the upmarket Ginza district of Tokyo. But Dover Street Market, the concept store created by Comme des Garcons, has never been bound by convention.

This month, Dover Street Market Ginza opened its doors in a brand-new six-story space that forms part of the renovated Komatsu Department Store, a landmark that dates back six decades.

It was in 2006 that Dover Street Market first opened in London, instantly winning armies of loyal fans due to its eclectic fusion of fashion and art, combined with carefully curated collections.

Since then, the popular concept store has appeared fleetingly in Tokyo in the form of temporary pop-up shops, but now it is here to stay in this new international flagship home.

The Dover Street Market is one a string of retail projects that appear to be revitalizing the shopping scene in Ginza, an area which is perhaps more famous for its historic department stores than for avant-garde concept outlets.

The creative driving force behind Dover Street Market is undoubtedly Rei Kawakubo, the iconic Japanese designer behind Comme des Garcons, who describes applying a philosophy of "beautiful chaos" to the concept store.

The task of implementing such a creative venture in the confines of a conventional office building in a traditional district of Tokyo was not without its challenges, according to Kawakubo.

Her solution? To commission 10 artists, designers and architects to create artworks and installations across the space in order to enliven the interiors and break down the boundaries between gallery and shop.

And so the gleaming white space is not only home to handpicked fashion collections - from A Bathing Ape to Balenciaga - but it also houses collaborations exclusive to the Ginza outlet (the vending machines selling T-shirts are a favorite).

Also scattered around the store are a number of unexpected creations. Among them, a tree-like wood installation by Paris-based Coudamy Design that spans the ceilings, trompe-l'oeil murals and oversized insect sculptures by Michael Howells, and a large elephant created by Stephanie Quayle for the Louis Vuitton space on the first floor.

This is not to mention the white, tilted spinning-top-like poles that surround the escalators, created by the only Japanese artist involved: Kyoto-based Kohei Nawa, whose imaginative works, such as his glass-beaded stag's heads, and inventive interiors have won him much critical acclaim.

"The most important challenge was how to deal with the domineering existence of the escalators in the middle of each floor, and turn it into something positive," says Kawakubo.

"I did this by working with artist Kohei Nawa, who created the slanted, breathing pillars that surround both sides of the escalators throughout the building, and by designing either side of the escalators to be one space, one feeling. The escalators feel like an arrow piercing through the floors, rather than an obstruction between both sides of the floors.

"Also crucially important to the design concept was breaking down the barriers between men and women, luxury and street brands, expensive and affordable."

Judging by the experimental installations, the edgy fashion collections - along with the crowds of creatives who thronged the store in its opening few days - it's clear that if anything is going to redefine the Ginza shopping experience, Dover Street Market Ginza stands as good a chance as any.
www.doverstreetmarket.com
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Dover Street Market Ginza: a bazaar concept | The Japan Times

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Twisting white poles. Wooden tree sculptures. Metal cages. Giant insects. And yes, an elephant. This may not sound like the standard decor of a fashion shop, particularly in the upmarket Ginza district of Tokyo. But Dover Street Market, the concept store created by Comme des Garcons, has never been bound by convention.

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This article was written in 2013, at the time of the opening of the NYC store.
This article again describes the whole interior of the store and talks about how it is a store of madness and creativity, something they say they don't see very often.

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At the newly opened Dover Street Market New York on 30th Street and Lexington Avenue, walls are covered with polka dots and shoes are sprinkled in glitter. There are seven small floors, stacked on top of one another like a treehouse, reached by a clear glass elevator that slowly moves through the center of the store.

And the clothes? What to make of a $10,770 black, origami-like Comme des Garçons dress with piping down the bodice and ruffles all over it?

"It's like a lampshade," a shopper on the fifth floor was saying Monday night to her male companion, as the actress Lucy Liu walked by.

"Perfect for a party in Venice," he offered.

Nearby, a young woman with blond hair, purple lipstick and bright green Nikes was peering up at a sign made of carnival letters that read: "We Make Noise, Not Clothes."

On the ground floor, Peter Marino, the fashion world's best-known architect, apparently checking out the competition, was waving goodbye to the designer Donna Karan.

She was sitting by the coffee bar, eating a cookie.

Ed Nardoza, the editor of Women's Wear Daily, was on a mezzanine above, looking for last-minute Christmas gifts.

Was this store - which is curated by Rei Kawakubo and pairs young designers with names like Gosha Rubchinskiy with established brands like Saint Laurent and Prada - the best thing to happen in recent retail memory, or merely another high-priced temple of consumerism?

It depended on whom you asked.

Sophia Lamar, a night-life regular who was hanging out by the staircase, said: "It's a lot of hype. When I saw people posting pics of it on Instagram, I knew exactly what it was about: hype."

Ms. Karan said: "It's everything I believe in. It's not uptight, it's not pretentious, it's real, it's the street, inside and out. I feel very at home here."

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At Dover Street Market, Differences of Opinion

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At the newly opened Dover Street Market New York on 30th Street and Lexington Avenue, walls are covered with polka dots and shoes are sprinkled in glitter. There are seven small floors, stacked on top of one another like a treehouse, reached by a clear glass elevator that slowly moves through the center of the store.

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This article talks about the history of the placement of DSM NYC. This piece was written a year after its opening and talks about how many brands they have and how visual the store is.

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Dover Street Market Opens in NYC | Departures Magazine

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A designer department store for the 21st-century

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This article was craeted a month after the opening of the DSM store in Singapore in 2017. They talk about the store itself but have an interview with co-founder Adrian Joffe who explains why DSM opened in Singapore and he talks about how nothing with DSM is ever planned, they just take up any opportunities they get given and go with it, which is why a store in Singapore was opened.
This interview gives a very good insight into the 'go with the flow' attitude the CEO has with the brand and how it seems to have so far worked out extremely well for the brand.

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Few, if any, stores in the world come close to Dover Street Market as a retail experience. The pioneering concept space is part of the COMME des GARCONS family, and is a must-visit for any fan of high-end, boundary-pushing fashion.

DSM stores are more like museums than regular shops, with unique spaces for each of the brands on sale - you'll find Gosha Rubchinskiy housed on grey rails and concrete, while visvim is nestled away in a folksy corner. What's more, each season the stores keep shoppers on their toes via so-called " New Beginnings ", where the stores' interiors are given a new makeover.

Dover Street Market recently announced that it'd be opening not one, but two new stores - one in LA, and one in Singapore. The LA store won't open until next year, but last weekend DSM Singapore opened its doors to a crowd of Asian fashion enthusiasts.

The latest DSM outpost comes in partnership with COMO Dempsey, the culinary subsidiary of asian luxury retail chain Club 21. The store is housed in an old army barracks in the city's Tanglin Village, next door to a new COMO Dempsey concept restaurant and bar by renowned French restaurateur Jean-Georges Vongerichten.

Highsnobiety 's Tim Suen caught up with COMME des GARCONS and Dover Street Market head honcho, Adrian Joffe, at the store's opening. Joffe kindly took the time to discuss the effect of Singapore's climate on fashion, the future of retail and the importance of staying independent.

Tim: What made you choose COMO Dempsey to set up DSM in Singapore?

Adrian: It's synergy, it's accident. It wasn't planned. We don't plan anything. We didn't plan New York. But the subject came up and we visited the site and we thought, this is really cool because it's against what Singapore is about. We thought we had the chance to bring something that was an alternative idea for Singapore and we really believed in the development of COMO Dempsey.

Tim: DSM consciously designs each store differently, according to the brand's kachikan, or sense of values.

Adrian: Yes.

Tim: What is the balance that goes into building a new store when taking into account local tastes and history?

Adrian: It's a very instinctive thing. When Rei designs the interior, she takes into account the feeling of the place, the atmosphere. It's almost something spiritual. It's a feeling, it's an instinct. So here, it feels like a resort. And also the nature of the building is the high ceiling, you see? Human beings appreciate height more than width. There's the hut, there's the jewelry, there's classic things we have in every single Dover Street, but in every single one, it's somehow different. It's taking all of the elements of what makes a DSM but adapting it to the building and then to the surroundings.

Tim: Singapore only has one season. Does that effect the collections you bring into Dover Street?

Adrian: Not really, no. I mean, it's freezing in Singapore in the buildings, right? So, we don't take any notice. Even when Rei designs collections, she's not worrying about spring, summer, fall, winter. Some countries it's cold when we start bringing spring/summer. What does that mean? Do you bring in T-shirts in January in New York when it's -50?

Tim: That's true.

Adrian: And coats. We need coats in Singapore in July because it's freezing inside the buildings. We don't really take into account seasons. It's the system. The fashion system is very rigid and we just ignore it. But you know, Singapore people are very internationally-minded, and they travel a lot.

Tim: So, specialty independent retailers have experienced a comeback in the U.S. because they're able to cater to specific customers and desires. As an independent retailer yourself, how do you see this evolving on a global scale?

Adrian: We're not pundits, we're not prophets about how things are gonna develop. This is what we do and we have the confidence to believe that this is an alternative way for people to shop. We felt the system was becoming a bit boring. Every shop was the same in every city. I think we've had a big influence on people and people are realizing that you can succeed in the kind of alternative way of doing things. It doesn't have to be the same corner in every shop in every airport. We believe in that community and the human touch, the human contact. We don't believe that retail brick-and-mortar will ever disappear.

Tim: So, you've never had investors.

Adrian: No.

Tim: And you choose your own pace, the way you grow.

Adrian: Yes.

Tim: What made you decide to open two new stores - in L.A. as well as Singapore?

Adrian: Again, L.A. just came up. The landlord is a friend and so he said, "What about the arts district?" We had plans to develop the American market and this just came up. It's in another area, and nobody's there and we had a good deal. We didn't plan. It's not in the five-year plan. We don't know where the next one's gonna be.

Tim: That's amazing. What do you think are the business tenets that have got you to the place where you are now and able to sustain authentic and genuine growth?

Adrian: I think it's really believing in people's individualism and need to express themselves in a different way. I think people are tired of being told what to do. That's very strong with the very big luxury groups and with their kind of media and the advertising. Everybody thinks that they have to get that bag or they have to look like this. But we would like to give benefit of the doubt to people to say that maybe they want to choose themselves. We like to give them the chance to express themselves in their own way.

We've never had investors because it kind of for us takes away the freedom of action. So we think it's better to be independent. It took a long time. Dover Street in London, the first one, it took five years for people to get into it.

Tim: How have you seen the luxury market and consumer evolve over the past ten years? It seems DSM succeeds in an area that older retailers and luxury brands are struggling with, which is trying to court a younger consumer while maintaining its long-term fans.

Adrian: That's right. That's what they're trying to do. But some of them are succeeding very well. But there's all cases. Some people are doing really well in China. Some people are not doing well in China. Some people grew too quickly and now they're cutting back. Some people do it more carefully. There's not one thing that's happening. The world is very complicated. People are complicated, deep people. If there was one formula, everybody would do it and everybody would succeed.

Tim: Have you seen a change in the way people in the fashion industry, for example, how they spend money or how they follow trends, that kind of thing?

Adrian: I think with the developing markets, more and more people are following the trends. But in some of the developed markets, people are tired of those trends and wanting to have alternatives and wanting to be more free in what they do and how they buy. There's everything. We need Gap, we need Uniqlo, we need Louis Vuitton. We need all these things to cater to all the different tastes of people at their different levels of development. Where we are maybe, but I don't like to underestimate the Chinese market. Just because it's massive and it's so interesting, it doesn't mean they all want the same thing. They want to have alternatives and choices. But it'll always be for the minority. We're never gonna be liked by everybody. We're not going to be understood by everybody, and that's totally fine.

Tim: That's what's special about DSM.

Adrian: Yeah. Thank you.

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Adrian Joffe Explains Why Dover Street Market Opened in Singapore

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Few, if any, stores in the world come close to Dover Street Market as a retail experience. The pioneering concept space is part of the COMME des GARCONS family, and is a must-visit for any fan of high-end, boundary-pushing fashion.

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This article is taken from 'Inside Retail, Asia' it taks about the re-branding of DSM and how it has gone from a collaboration, to the ownership by DSM.
This article also describes how they have designed the interior of the store.

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Comme des Garcons emporium I.T Beijing Market (I.TBM) has officially been renamed Dover Street Market Beijing (DSMB).

It has also joined the international family of Dover Street Market (DSM). This not only enhances the long-term cooperation between I.T Group and Comme des Garcons Group, but also makes Beijing a global fashion metropolis following London, Tokyo, New York and Singapore, says DSM.

"I.TBM's business model has been a great success," says Comme des Garcons CEO Adrian Joffee, who is also international director of DSM. "Now we usher in a new stage, in which we seek a closer cooperation."

I.T founder/chairman Sham Kar Wai says it is memorable to elevate the company's collaboration to the DSM global family.

After the relaunch, I.T will still be responsible for routine business and DSM for overall creative planning and most interior design. Both parties will dedicate more effort to introducing original ideas from outstanding designers and artists through DSMB to Chinese consumers.

I.T and DSM jointly hosted a celebration party for more than 300 guests in Sanlitun Taikoo Li to reveal the new product series, in-store creative artwork display and visual installations in the four-floor store.

Electronic displays by menswear retailer/designer Gosha Rubchinskiy have been added to the first floor, while Avi Gold (Avi Friedman), known for pattern designs, has introduced the Better Hot Dog zone, where artistic derivatives are sold at "hot dog booths" full of street styles.

On the second floor, Belgian designer Marine Serre's zone features metal shelves displaying her fashions, while Irish designer Simone Rocha presents the Doll Matrix echoing an English manor to display her similarly themed spring/summer collection. The Y project zone features garments twisted like flowers in vacuum bags.

On the third floor, the new Acne Studios zone has a cardboard box theme, inspired by the artworks of Andy Warhol.

A t-shirt gallery space on the next floor showcases exclusive Bape x DSMB series, a "Made in China" series by Feng Chen Wang and special Year of the Dog t-shirts designed by DSM and global designers.

As well as the new installations, DSMB also launched exclusive or debut items to celebrate the soft opening, including items from Bape, Comme des Garcons, DSM, DSMB, Feng Chen Wang and Nikelab.

Brands available at DSMB include Acne Studios, Alyx Celine, AMI, Bape, Comme des Garcons, Daniela Gregis, Dior Homme, Drkshdw, Facetasm, Fear of God, Gosha Rubchinskiy, Greg Lauren, Gucci, Jacquemus, Junya Watanabe, Juun.J, JW Anderson, Kolor, Loewe, Marine Serre, Molly Goddard, NikeLab, Nina Ricci, Noir Kei Ninomiya, Nona9on, Peaceminusone, Rick Owens, Roberts Wood, Saint Laurent, Simone Rocha, Stampd, Stella McCartney, Thom Browne, Tricot, Undercover, Valentino, Vetements, Xander Zhou, Xiao Li and Y/Project.

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Beijing's I.T emporium renamed Dover Street Market Beijing - Inside Retail Asia

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Comme des Garcons emporium I.T Beijing Market (I.TBM) has officially been renamed Dover Street Market Beijing (DSMB). It has also joined the international family of Dover Street Market (DSM). This not only enhances the long-term cooperation between I.T Group and Comme des Garcons Group, but also makes Beijing a global fashion metropolis following London, Tokyo, New York and Singapore, says DSM.

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This article was written the year of the opening of DSM in LA, it talks about how this store looks internally and also talks a litle surrounding co-founder Rei Kawakubo.

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Fashion concept store Dover Street Market has opened in a warehouse building with hardly any windows in Los Angeles, creating an industrial backdrop for high-end clothing and installations.

Dover Street Market Los Angeles (DSMLA) is located in the city's Arts District in a nondescript brick building, which is painted white outside and features concrete floors, white tiled walls and exposed beams within.

The 15,000-square-foot (1,393-square-metres) across the ground floor was designed by Dover Street Market founder Rei Kawakubo, who also runs Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons. The designer's work was the subjective of The Met's fashion exhibition in 2017.

Named after the store's now-vacated first location on Dover Street in London, which opened in 2004, the series of retail spaces now includes six worldwide.

Dover Street Market New York refreshes displays using bold prints and raw materials

Each is arranged like a department store, with brands sectioned off from one another. Labels in LA include Nike, Maison Margiela, Off White by Virgil Abloh, Chanel and Raf Simons.

Kawakubo has designed all of the stores around the theme Beautiful Chaos, "the accidental and synergistic energy that results from DSM's community of creatives, designers and artists colliding under one roof," said a project description.

"I want to create a kind of market where various creators from various fields gather together and encounter each other in an ongoing atmosphere of beautiful chaos; the mixing up and coming together of different kindred souls who all share a strong personal vision," said Kawakubo.

At DSMLA, two concrete buildings are joined and accessed by two doorways. Inside are two huts that pierce the dividing wall - a reference to the label's black hut logo.

Made of corrugated scrap metal sheets, these huts contain checkout counters, fitting rooms and spaces for brands to display.

A variety of installations across the store were created by six artists: Warren Muller, Lyn Dillin, Bjorn Dahlem, Yuichi Higashionna, Gary Card and Stuart Haygarth.

The installations include silvery arches and circles fabricated from metal in Japan. In another area, black dining chairs are piled into a large mound, while clear display cubes are inserted into traditional wood furniture pieces nearby. Rose Kennedy Schlossberg has also created videos for the store.

DSMLA also incorporates a Rose Bakery, created by Paris baker Rose Carrarini and her husband Jean Charles, which offers 40 seats inside and out.

Dover Street Market has expanded around the world over the past decade. After opening in Tokyo in 2006, the company has expanded to New York City in 2013, Singapore in 2017, and Beijing earlier this year. The brand relocated its original London store to a space on nearby Haymarket in 2016.

Each of the outposts receives an interior overhaul every few months, when installations are replaced and new brands are introduced.

LA's Arts District is undergoing rapid regeneration, with many of its former industrial repurposed for retail, offices or entertainment. Also recently opened, Bavel restaurant designed by Studio Unltd features a similar warehouse aesthetic.

Photography is by Eric Staudenmaier.

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Dover Street Market's sixth fashion destination opens in LA

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Fashion concept store Dover Street Market has opened in a warehouse building with hardly any windows in Los Angeles, creating an industrial backdrop for high-end clothing and installations. Dover Street Market Los Angeles (DSMLA) is located in the city's Arts District in a nondescript brick building, which is painted white outside and features concrete floors, white tiled walls and exposed beams within.

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This interview is one of the very few interviews with co-founder Rei Kawakubo, in this interview, she covers everything from Kawakubo herself and how she acts, to what the store means to her and what she is doing to evolve the store.

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I am not here to ask Rei Kawakubo about clothes, because she no longer makes them, though this hasn't stopped her continuing to be probably the most important fashion designer in the world. Five years ago, her Not Making Clothes catwalk show for Comme des Garçons included a model dressed in a cage of black strips of fabric and a lurid pink teddy which half-hid the wearer behind a riot of frills. Nine seasons later, she is still staging a show at every Paris fashion week, helms a business with a turnover estimated at $280m (£215m) a year, but she still insists she is not making clothes. In other words: Rei Kawakubo is as high concept as it gets.

Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo says she is 'angry with easy fashion'.

"What does it mean, not making clothes?" My question is to Kawakubo but posed, as all must be, via Adrian Joffe, president of Comme des Garçons. Joffe is Kawakubo's husband of 25 years, business partner of 31, and her Man on Earth, through whom she communicates with the non-Japanese-speaking world. He translates, and she says something back. They have an intense discussion in her native language. She sits sphinx-like, arms folded, eyes flicking from Joffe to me. "She says what she would really like would be to get a new brain each season," he says eventually. "But she can't. So she has to find a new method to come at the work. Nine seasons ago she thought: maybe if I don't try to make clothes, I will be able to make something new." So, I say, it's about creating space for original thought? After conferring with Kawakubo, he gives me an encouraging half-smile and says, not unkindly, "It's not as simple as that."

The Comme des Garçons HQ sits behind the 17th-century facade of the Place Vendôme in Paris. To the left, Chanel's jewellery boutique windows are a glittery snowglobe of diamonds under creamy awnings; to the right, at Chaumet, emeralds glint on velvet cushions. The plain black door marked Comme des Garçons leads to a courtyard where the brand's young staff eat salad lunches and drink coffee. The dress code, for men and women, revolves around black trousers, oversized shirting and chunky flatform sandals; hair is either cut short or twisted into a messy knot. A door leads to a narrow, industrial-chic showroom at the end of which is Kawakubo's studio, half a storey higher and shielded with a glass wall. At the end of long rails of clothes, a bobbed figure can be seen, raised altar-like halfway to the ceiling, sitting in quiet concentration at her long white desk.

Today the showroom is lined with men's clothing: trousers in puckered candy stripes, a lurid lilac suit, ripped-out halves of contrasting sweaters melded into one garment. I am examining a necklace made from a toothy anatomical model of a dog's jaw when Joffe arrives to usher me into Kawakubo's office. Glossily bald and neatly dressed in black, his low voice and serene demeanour give the impression of a very chic modern monk.

Kawakubo is tiny, with translucent skin and, at 75, a salt and pepper coarseness to her signature black bob that I had not seen in photos. (Photographs of her are famously limited.) She is wearing a paper-fine white trenchcoat over a black shirt and voluminous black skirt, with chunky silver rings on her left hand. She walks around the table to greet me with a flat-footed gait which counterbalances her paper-doll proportions. She shakes my hand, and mutters something to Joffe. I did tell you, he says, sotto voce. It is for the Guardian. (Kawakubo may or may not speak English, but I get the impression she understands it.) As they talk, her body language is that of someone just reminded about an appointment at the dentist.

Kawakubo's high concept designs are deliberately challenging.

The encounter is less like an interview than it is like being summoned to the office of a severe but rather marvellous headmistress and tasked with completing a cryptic crossword, clues jumbled in translation, against the ticking clock of her evident boredom. She rarely gives interviews, and those few journalists who have been granted an audience all emerge with a war story: the time she answered an opening question by drawing a circle in black pen, pushing the piece of paper across the table, then leaving the room; the time she fielded the question, "What makes you laugh?" with the one-word answer, "You." Joffe's role is part translator, part hostage-negotiator, coaxing her back into the conversation when she threatens to check out. The vinegary note of well-worn marital bickering is unmistakable. While she sits very still, he makes constant, careful hand gestures, as if conducting an imaginary tea ceremony.

An early question-and-answer goes like this. Many fashion designers, I say, would say their work is self-expression. What does Comme des Garçons tell us about you? Joffe translates, she replies, then talks over him in Japanese. She asked if you can clarify the question, he says, but as I fumble for new words, she starts talking again. "She says this is not relevant," Joffe says. Oh, I say, OK. "She says the way you live and the way you get energy is different from what you have to do to make a collection; there is no connection between the way she lives and the way she makes clothes."

The challenging-performance-art experience of conversing with Kawakubo feels very close to the challenging-performance-art experience of watching one of her catwalk shows, where models wrapped in skeins of wool like butterflies emerging from chrysalises walk with the exaggerated slowness of children playing grandmother's footsteps. In fact, the synergy between the two feels so clear, I think I have misheard her answer, so I check. "That's what she said," Joffe repeats, raising his eyebrows minutely as if to convey sympathy with my plight. "She wonders why we are perplexed by her answer. I told her I am as perplexed as you." Now she talks in Japanese, for a long time, until he says to her in English, "I do understand, but I am surprised" after which the conversation returns to Japanese. Eventually he turns to me and says, "She thinks it is a misconception - by me, you, everyone - that what she feels and what she has said about believing in freedom, about the energy that comes from emotional freedom, has anything to do with her work. She says it is not directly connected with the work, the torture, of making a collection. In a sense, this is the total expression of who she is, because she has been doing it so long and because there is no team. Rei equals Comme des Garçons. But she says the way she happens to be and the way she makes a living are still different. I get it now," he concludes, nodding and smiling. Oh, yes, I say, hoping I sound convincing. Me, too.

Kawakubo once described her work as similar to Zen 'koans', unsolvable puzzles set by Buddhist teachers.

It is difficult to recount an encounter with Kawakubo without sounding either as if you are sending her up, or as if you are po-faced and tone deaf to absurdity. I am absolutely not sending her up. She is a visionary, a radical and - whether she likes it or not, more of which later - a feminist heroine. She invented black as the colour of the urban creative, she liberated high fashion from vanity, and she did all of this in laceratingly original catwalk shows. She once described her work as similar to Zen koans, unsolvable puzzles set by Buddhist teachers which, by being unsolvable, teach you the limits of your intellect and so set your mind free. Kawakubo changed not just the way we think about fashion but the way fashion and thought can coexist in culture and commerce, inspiring a new generation of fashion-designers-cum-thought-leaders such as Alessandro Michele, whose Gucci muses are Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin, and Louis Vuitton's Virgil Abloh, who staged an early show in collaboration with artist Jenny Holzer to raise awareness of the refugee crisis.

Still, you would have to have a tin ear for comedy not to be just slightly tickled during an hour with Kawakubo. I ask a question about colour, seeking her thoughts on why, after declaring red the new black, her more recent collections have become rainbow-bright. The translation escalates into a heated exchange between husband and wife. I am wondering what is so contentious when Joffe turns to me. "I'm sorry," he says, and for a moment I suspect he may have forgotten I was present. "What was your question again?"

A 'koan-like' design by Rei Kawakubo.

What makes all of this even more extraordinary is that as well as being the most rarefied, high-concept designer at Paris fashion week, Kawakubo is an extremely successful businesswoman. Born in Tokyo in 1942, she launched Comme des Garçons aged 27 and within a decade had more than 100 stores in Japan selling her distinctive avant garde aesthetic (black, asymmetry, ragged edges). But it was in 1981, when she brought Comme des Garçons to Paris fashion week, that Kawakubo truly set the industry alight. Something about the interplay of her Japanese themes (the space between things, mirror images, beginning from zero) with the Parisian alchemy of perfumed chic and cobblestone-throwing rebellion made her shows the most compelling thing Paris had seen in years. On their heels came the launch of a series of in-house brands (the largest being Play, with its distinctive drawn-heart logo), plus lucrative collaborations with Nike and a successful perfume business. The 2004 launch of Dover Street Market, a kind of arthouse department store, showed her to be a true business visionary. With its poured concrete floors, pop-up artist collaborations and guerrilla events, DSM was a decade ahead of the rest of the industry. The stores continue to be the hippest square feet in the hippest cities in the world, and are redesigned each season by Kawakubo herself. In the past, when asked to define herself, she has at times chosen the one-word answer "businesswoman".

Kawakubo's fashion, all savage unprettiness and felted, bulbous lumps and bumps, feels like a gauntlet laid down to the narrow guardrails of vanity that trammel womenswear. Many of her pieces are unsized; she experimented, for a while, with not having mirrors in dressing rooms, so that clients could focus on how they felt. On a visceral level, there is something wonderful about a 75-year-old female artist (my word, not hers) who has no qualms about taking herself so absolutely and completely seriously. But as much as feminists try to claim her as their own, she refuses to call herself one ("She says the woman's body is no relation to what she tries to do. There is no challenge to vanity or to beauty, she is just not interested"), though she does identify as a punk: "As a spirit, as a way of living." And as a punk, Joffe translates, she is "angry with easy fashion. Sportswear and streetwear is taking over, especially in men's fashion. It is not truly iconoclastic... People seem to be taken in by it, but it's not rebellious, really. There is no point of view." And fashion shouldn't be easy? This gets a vehement head shake, on translation. "When things are too easy, you don't think and you don't make progress. Not just in fashion. In everything.

Many of Kawakubo's pieces are unsized. She experimented with not having mirrors in her dressing rooms, so clients could focus on the feeling of the clothes.

"Is there much more? She's getting tired." Kawakubo's patience for explaining herself is famously limited. Art of the In-Between, the exhibition of her work staged at the Met in New York last year, featured no explanatory texts, at her insistence. As only the second monographic show to be awarded to a living designer by the Met (after Yves Saint Laurent in 1983), it was a huge honour ("She says it was a difficult experience, but it was satisfying to do"). In this year's afterglow, Kawakubo has plenty on her plate: a new Dover Street Market, in Los Angeles, and the launch of new brand CDG, selling T-shirts and sneakers to today's logo-obsessed fashion consumers.

"She said I should explain to you the amount of work she has to do, the shops she has to design as well as the collections. It never stops," Joffe says. What elements of the job do you enjoy? She shakes her head on translation. "There is no pleasure in the work," Joffe tells me. (She always calls it "the work".) "She says people who say they enjoy the work, she thinks they don't take it seriously. The only way to hope to make something new is not to be satisfied." Does she, famously unenthralled by fashion history, ever think about what her legacy will be? They chat for several minutes, then Joffe turns to me and says, "She's never thought about it. She doesn't care about or believe in posterity." She says something in Japanese - the tone is dismissive - and he turns to her and says, in English, "Everybody else thinks about it! You are the only one who doesn't think about it. That's why designers make foundations, because they care about history, about what will be their legacy. You are the only one who thinks like this." She says something else, quieter this time. "She says when she's not here any more, she doesn't care if nothing is here any more," Joffe says with the hint of a sigh. "She is highly unusual." She looks at me, and smiles.

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A rare interview with Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo

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High-concept, high-fashion and radical, designer Kawakubo is considered the queen of fashion. Jess Cartner-Morley meets the designer at her headquarters in Paris

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This article is looking back on what DSM stands for with their brand and how they overcame the risk factor of ignoring all the retail rules and completely pushing their brand in a completely different direction in all ways.

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Fast-forward 13 years and you can now find DSM stores in Tokyo, New York, China and from next year Los Angeles, while revenues for the London store stood at £23 million in 2016. But what is it exactly that makes DSM so special? Sure, it closes twice a year for a three-day refit to regularly swap out collections, meaning every six months your experience of the store is completely different. Yet ask anyone with even a mild interest in fashion and they'll say the same thing: DSM is about more than simply shopping. Rather than renting out the spaces, the store takes a commission, so different areas don't become isolated islands fighting for customer's attention across 31,000 square feet. Each designer is encouraged to decorate their own area within the store, while notorious art duo Jake and Dinos Chapman, graphic artist Jamie Reid and set designer Gary Card have contributed to display windows.

As Dreamland Syndicate, a Polish label currently on rotation in store, puts it: 'Dover Street is kind of a bridge between high and low brow art, and mixing the two is a fairly new phenomenon in the fashion industry.'

The result is a rare, almost unheard-of equality, where fairly new skate labels such as Palace are given as much importance as near 100-year-old brands like Gucci. Can't afford Comme des Garçons? Doesn't matter; swerve the high-end for a £30 scarf and walk out feeling like you've truly experienced a 'concept store' and, well, actually enjoyed it.
Louise Donovan is a freelance journalist who's written for Vice, i-D and ShortList magazine

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London's Dover Street Market is the fashion spot mixing luxury with the unknown

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Fast-forward 13 years and you can now find DSM stores in Tokyo, New York, China and from next year Los Angeles, while revenues for the London store stood at £23 million in 2016. But what is it exactly that makes DSM so special?

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This article is looking back at DSM's 10 year anniversary, journalist Sarah Mower has described and spoke about the last 10 years and how much DSM has evolved and how she sees it evolving further in the future.

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Time to stop a moment and cheer Rei Kawakubo, champion of all that is indie and excellently original in fashion. We hurl this hurrah in the direction of Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons headquarters in Japan on the anniversary of the founding of her Dover Street Market store. The London mothership, the ex-office building she turned into a six-floor nest for fledgling designers and hand-picked stuff is ten years old this month. Instantly a meeting- and -shopping mecca for everyone who is driven to know about fashion-and a bright spot of non-conservatism throughout the dreariest days of the recession, Dover Street's principles have succeeded to the point that there are now two multilevel outposts in New York and Ginza in Tokyo. So: Was there a ten-year expansion plan in her mind? Kawakubo refrains from interviews, but her husband Adrian Joffe, shakes his head. "Never!" he says. "We go with instinct, always." Being independent-and having a built-in emotional-navigation system-gave them nimbleness and empathy with both customers and designers. "The idea," says Joffe, "is sharing our space with people with vision."

The store on Dover Street originated as a 2004 brain wave Kawakubo had about a shop which would be "Beautiful Chaos"-her feeling about the need for a place with a non-corporate, free-range, community-type atmosphere, the kind she remembered from visiting the underground warren of hippie stalls at Kensington Market in the seventies and eighties. The part that has taken many a trembling young designer unawares is that Kawakubo will herself personally show up and vet their work before giving her nod of approval. But how does she select? Joffe says: "Hard work. Rei can always tell if someone works hard on their patterns."

The result: Dover Street Market has become one of fashion's prime underpinners of a whole generation of talent from all corners of the fashion world, thus creating a cultural environment in which big players like to be seen too (the latest being the showcasing of ** Nicolas Ghesquière'**s first collection for Louis Vuitton, and ** J. W. Anderson'**s for Loewe). Pharrell Williams has joined the DSM party too-the launch of his Comme des Garçons perfume collaboration, GIRL, is in full swing right now.

Not that Kawakubo is ever one to rest on her laurels. She's looking forward, instead, to the next ten years while (between the lines) having a bit of fun with her shopkeeping. There's a celebration bunch of DSM souvenirs (including a teddy bear and flip flops), and some of the extended Dover Street Market family has made special editions (Simone Rocha's silver shoes and Sacai's dresses are our favorites). Since Monday, the London mothership has been festooned with declarations of Kawakubo-think about creativity: "Effort is the future," "Outsider is the future," and "See things with other eyes," among them. No doubt the meaning of those pronouncements will be pored over by fashion students for years to come-but at first sight, doesn't it all sound rather optimistic?

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Happy 10th Birthday, Dover Street Market!

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Time to stop a moment and cheer Rei Kawakubo, champion of all that is indie and excellently original in fashion. We hurl this hurrah in the direction of Kawakubo's Comme des Garçons headquarters in Japan on the anniversary of the founding of her Dover Street Market store.

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These are images that I have taken myself from Dover Street Market, it helps to demonstrate how DSM displays their products and their use of creativity within the store.

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These images are from DSM in New York, this store has similarities with the London store, however you can tell how each store is tailored to its location.

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Harvey Nichols is a department store which is in someways similar to DSM. Harvey Nichols often has creative displays for the brands they stock, the main difference between the two department stores is that DSM is a lot more artistic and unusual in their displays in comparison to Harvey Nichols. Harvey Nichols has a more of a contemporary and sleek feel to their store and they have creative window displays which show the products compared to DSM who don't often use their windows to display their products.

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Harrods in another competitor of DSM, Harrods is different compared to DSM due to the window displays, Harrods, especially at Christmas, has very extravagant windows heavily promoting products, whereas as we know DSM does the complete opposite. Harrods has very sleek and luxury feeling display compared to DSM's street style and artistic displays.

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This is an essay written by Joffe and it looks back and talks about the past 15 years and how they've evolved DSM.
He looks back on the mistakes they made and also the best times for their store and reflects on them.

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Lead Image Photography by Scheltens & Abbenes

I remember the day of the opening on 10 September 2004. A lot of people were confused. The message of 'beautiful chaos' appeared to be resonating, but for the wrong reasons. Where is the men's department? How can the cafe be right next to the clothes? Who are we trying to appeal to? Where is the basement? Or - is there a basement? And what does Shakespeare Meets Picasso actually mean? The chaos was just chaotic, not beautiful, and doomsayers abounded. We tried to tell people that the basement was actually in the basement, that all departments were mixed up deliberately, that we wanted to appeal to everyone who wanted a new, inspiring, invigorating shopping experience, without borders and definitions, and that the installations and sets - such as Shakespeare Meets Picasso by the great and sorely missed Michael Howells - were intended to give an exciting visual backdrop to stimulate the senses and make one feel positive.

The first four or so years were tough. I remember the furniture for Ronnie Loves, a hugely successful curated space by Ronnie Cooke Newhouse, being so heavy all the staff dreaded her coming in and wanting to move it. I remember several invasions of the whole store by Stephen Jones, Chanel and the ICA. Karl Lagerfeld couldn't make it to the Chanel opening, so he sent ten life-sized cardboard cut-outs of his image that did very nicely instead, scattered as they were all over the building. For Stephen's 25th-anniversary invasion, we had to keep almost the entire staff all night, hanging all the hats from all the ceilings on all the floors. Nobody wanted to take them down, so popular had the exhibition been, but also because it was even more difficult than putting them up. After about four years of enormous endeavour, changing windows every few weeks, constantly looking for new young talent, closing down every six months for three days and transforming the shop for each new season, we finally broke even. And we've not looked back since, going from strength to strength, and opening in Tokyo, New York, Beijing, Singapore and, most recently, Los Angeles.

We celebrated our ten-year anniversary on Dover Street with a huge wooden structure, designed, as are most of the DSMs, by Rei Kawakubo, with positive messages emblazoned thereon. We had two problems with this. Firstly, a lot of people thought we had closed down, and secondly, Dickon Bowden, who has been by my side since the beginning, nearly went to jail because of some misunderstanding with Westminster City Council. Not long after that, we had a nice letter from our landlords saying we'd made Dover Street - the street itself - so popular they had no choice but to triple the rent. Luckily they had another building to offer us, which was three times bigger but proportionately less expensive. The trouble was that it was south of Piccadilly and as any sensible merchant knows, nobody shops south of Piccadilly. Being a risktaker by nature, and also not being terribly interested in believing market research, we took the beautiful old Burberry building on Haymarket. There are bound to be some people who will come south of Piccadilly, we thought. We've never aspired to appeal to the majority anyway. Democracy can sometimes be seriously flawed, as we are seeing more and more all over the world.

In these scary, uncertain times we live in, we feel it is more and more important to stick to our guns, to not be beholden to established principles, to not listen to industry norms, to never compromise, and always believe in the power of creation, without which there is no progress.

We have never wavered from our original idea of sharing our space with like-minded creative people, each with something of their own to say. Inclusivity and a sense of community among our staff and customers have never been more important. I am intensely proud to say that the success of Dover Street Market rests entirely on the incredible teamwork of the nearly 300 people who work with us worldwide. Most emotionally resonant of all is the fact that these core values are the same as those of Comme des Garçons, the values that Rei Kawakubo has practised without ever straying one inch for the past 50 years.

AnOther Magazine asked for lots of anecdotes, so here is one more to end. I'll never forget the emotionally charged moment when the coverings were removed simultaneously from the Haymarket windows, revealing the ethereal beauty of the massive white spheres behind. There were very few dry eyes among the scores of exhausted staff who witnessed this from the pavement in the early hours of that opening day.

There are countless fond memories. Our famous and infamous Open Houses in each of the DSMs have sometimes been so popular, so crowded, and involved so much hard work, that we've begun experimenting with the Closed Open House, the exact definition of which escapes me, although the sense of nonsense is appealing. Another of the mysterious goings-on at DSM is the management of queues for hot sneaker launches. This operation never ceases to irritate me since I want everyone who wants a pair to get one, but I have learnt to stay well out of it. I only ask that it is as fair as possible.

The constantly changing environment and pursuant evolving energy at DSM is primordial to the nature of our attempt to save the concept of the brick-and-mortar store, where people can meet each other and exchange ideas and show their individual vision. I can only end by thanking most sincerely each and every one of our staff and all the partners and co-conspirators we have ever worked with and whomever we will have the pleasure to work with in the future.
Dover Street Market celebrates 15 years with a series of special product launches and installations, launching November 29, 2019. Retouching: Jan hibma. Producer: Melanie turpin at talent and partner. Special thanks to EE exclusives. This story originally featured in the Autumn/Winter 2019 issue of AnOther Magazine, which is on sale now.

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15 Years of Dover Street Market: An Essay by Adrian Joffe

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Lead Image Photography by Scheltens & Abbenes I remember the day of the opening on 10 September 2004. A lot of people were confused. The message of 'beautiful chaos' appeared to be resonating, but for the wrong reasons. Where is the men's department? How can the cafe be right next to the clothes?

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This article talks mainly about the history of DSM and Comme des Garçons when they first started out.

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This article talks about the store in LA, it talks mainly about LA and how it has become one of biggest places for fashion trend-spotters to place themselves leaving DSM in the perfect place for customers.
It also talks about the interesting choice of location and the exterior of this DSM store and how it differs from the other stores.

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By now, as far as trend-spotters are concerned, it's fair to say that Los Angeles is no longer the next big thing-it is the big thing. Every couple of months or so, something seems to ratchet up the city's It factor: another tastemaker relocates from elsewhere; another institution halfway across the globe fetishizes it; another boutique opens its doors. (As one transplanted Brooklyn designer recently put it, "I moved here to get away from New York fashion people, and now all those people are here.") And so, it's both provocative and not provocative at all that Dover Street Market-that global arbiter of all things new and next, hip and hyped-has opened its sixth outpost here, in the Arts District east of downtown.

The 15,000-square-foot former warehouse, spread across two connected buildings, differs from its predecessors in London, New York, Tokyo, Singapore, and Beijing in much the same way that Los Angeles itself does: It's sunlit and sprawlingly horizontal. Like the other locations, DSM L.A. houses a series of nook-like installations for various collections, brands, capsules, collaborations, and store-in-stores, as well as a Rose Bakery, though this version of the café also includes (this being California) an outdoor terrace. The industrial-futuristic architectural modules throughout-white and silver in varying textures and shapes-were designed by Rei Kawakubo herself, and the effect of wandering between them, without all those stairs or elevators to break things up, is one of continuous surprise and occasional disorientation, like an Epcot ride for adults, or a haunted house without the fear factor. (It's definitely not haunted: In true Los Angeles fashion, the space was "cleared" before construction via three different New Age healing modalities, as filmmaker-actor and Kennedy scion Rose Schlossberg explains in one of the videos the store commissioned her to make.)

Just before the opening, Dover Street and Comme des Garçons CEO Adrian Joffe wore a thick rapper-style faux-gold chain with a massive DOVER STREET MARKET LOS ANGELES pendant-the store's cheeky staff identifier tag-as he roamed the premises. "We've been thinking about a second [U.S. store] since we opened in New York," he said. "Everybody in the industry said, 'You gotta do it in L.A.' Of course, there's the conversation about its resurgence-the art, the music-and the cinema, the best in the world." But also, he explained, "It's open to new ideas. We like that. Even back in the '50s-Krishnamurti, Timothy Leary. It's always been an open place."

Right now, no part of the city is as open-wide open-as the postindustrial Arts District. It's bike-able, if too vast to qualify as walkable, with freeway access in every direction and appealing old factory buildings at various stages of conversion. Three blocks from where we were standing-just past an indoor gun range, over on Alameda-men sleep in tents, and 18-wheelers load and unload wholesale produce. Yet Hauser & Wirth's museum-size gallery is here, so are Phillip Lim 's new store and too many third-wave coffee roasters to count. A pair of 57-story towers by Herzog and De Meuron-housing a hotel, thousands of luxury apartments, a K-12 school, and even more retail-will soon sprout around the corner, as will a smattering of other starchitect-branded condo and hotel developments, a Soho House, a light-rail station, and Time Warner's new West Coast HQ. The future on-ramp to the new 6th Street Viaduct-which will be a High Line-esque mix of parks, public art, and walking trails when it opens in 2020-is across from DSM's parking lot (yes, crucially, the store has one). Right now, it's a gravel lot obscured by a slapdash wooden fence lined with black trash bag plastic.

Beyond the undeniable if-you-build-it-they-will-come factor, Joffe also sees DSM's West Coast flag-planting as an ideological move in the era of Trump and Brexit. "California seems the epitome of the resistance," he said. "You can't not be political anymore. It's the right time for a statement." The store's statement, according to him: "It's inclusivity. It's community."

To that end, Joffe and his team made a point of recruiting a wide swath of local talent, from established indie labels- Eckhaus Latta, Sophie Buhai-to underground figures at the nexus of art and streetwear. Eli Russell Linnetz, a young creative-about-town, teamed with artist Jordan Wolfson for a graphic T-shirt series and designed his own capsule of neon separates; designer Kyle Ng of Brain Dead created, in addition to clothes, handmade ceramics and a graphic label for a special edition of quince jam from beloved East Hollywood café Sqirl. The dedicated T-shirt zone, enclosed with chain-link fencing, is a highlight; some of the graphics poke wry fun at the heaven-and-hell paradox that is California.

"The nice surprise is that a lot of the so-called streetwear brands are more creative and artistic in L.A.-it's not just putting a logo on a T-shirt," Joffe said. "It's streetwear defined as what people in the street wear, rather than what it became when the luxury brands got a hold of it."

Not that luxury brands have been left out: There's a Chanel jewelry alcove and an incongruously retro-wallpapered Gucci corner. Current toast of the industry Marine Serre, a first-timer fresh off her 11-hour flight from Paris, was manning the elaborately torqued rack that comprised her first-ever permanent retail space at the Friday night party. She'd been in town for less than 24 hours, but had already taken the bus, something people had told her not to do. "It's a really weird melting pot of things you don't think go together," she said, when asked about her initial impression. "I think I have a connection there." She was also taken with the street style glimpsed from those bus windows-"people really aren't shy about the way they dress here"-and the excitement the store's construction workers had for the space they'd just finished building. "When new things open, it gives a certain vibe and hope and energy. People want to experience things."

And that's the thing about Los Angeles-it hasn't all been done before, and buying clothes is almost never a result of happenstance, the way it is in Manhattan. You need a compelling reason to leave the house. You crave one. And so, until the Arts District really does become the Manhattan that developers say it will, a totally over-the-top destination flagship in a still-transitioning neighborhood isn't so much a gamble as a no-brainer. On Friday night, as hypebeasts-hundreds of them-sipped Champagne and examined padded dinosaur-skeleton sculptures and swarmed the cash registers, the smog outside turned the sunset sky a lurid lavender-persimmon swirl, a panorama pierced only by a cell phone tower dressed as a palm tree. Try finding that on Amazon. "Human beings need conversation, to touch and feel something," Joffe said. "We want to get people excited about going out, instead of going online."

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Why Dover Street Market's New Los Angeles Store Is a Game Changer

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By now, as far as trend-spotters are concerned, it's fair to say that Los Angeles is no longer the next big thing-it is the big thing. Every couple of months or so, something seems to ratchet up the city's It factor: another tastemaker relocates from elsewhere; another institution halfway across the globe fetishizes it; another boutique opens its doors.

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The newest store which opened in 2019, is in Paris and only sells beauty products. DSM have of course kept to their usual style of creative and artistic displays, but instead of clothes, there is make-up and skin products from around the world.

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It's widely acknowledged that French girls are the queens of cool. From their wardrobes to their make-up, they make minimal look so damn chic.

So it's no wonder then that the world's coolest concept store, Dover Street Market, has chosen Paris to house its newest outpost. But this one has one big difference: it's dedicated purely to beauty.

Since launching in London in 2004, the store - which has become synonymous with stocking avant garde, in demand designers - has expanded worldwide, with shops in New York, Singapore, Beijing and Los Angeles. Although predominantly known for its fashion offering, this new site, Dover Street Parfums Market, will house a selection of cherry-picked perfumes, cosmetics and make-up brands from around the world.

So, what should we expect to see on the shelves? 'From avant-garde independent young labels to the most established and classic references, it's going to be an explosion of scents, sounds and textures' they told ELLE.

'From Amazonian oils and charcoal toothpaste to non-binary essences, honouring the no borders beautiful chaos DNA of all the DSM's.' Even the actual shelves will - in typical DSM style - be edgy and aesthetically pleasing, with 'nothing on the walls or floor, no back drops, no display materials, no logos'. Instead the designer, Rei Kawakubo, has designed a 'forest of pillars with egg shaped shelves carved within them.'

It almost sounds too cool for us to step our high-street-shoe-clad feet in, but the brand offering has us swayed: Comme de Garçons, Gucci perfumes and make-up, Byredo, MAC and Thom Browne, to name a few.

If you're in Paris be sure to pop in, let's not let those French girls have all the cool to themselves.

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Dover Street Market Has Opened Its First Ever Store Dedicated To Beauty

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It's widely acknowledged that French girls are the queens of cool. From their wardrobes to their make-up, they make minimal look so damn chic. So it's no wonder then that the world's coolest concept store, Dover Street Market, has chosen Paris to house its newest outpost.

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This blog post has a brief overview of some of the competitors they have found against DSM.

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This interview includes input from co-CEO Adrian Joffe, and Vice President Dickon Bowden.
The interviewer asks:
Can you reveal any hints about the seventh location and its opening time?

Adrian: Paris. End of next year. Hint.

It shows how direct and to the point Adrian Joffe is and this is well reflected in the brand.
Paris is said to be the last of the DSM family, and they talk about how they plan to go with the flow and just see what happens as they do with the majority of there big steps and decisions.

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After a soft opening in February, Dover Street Market Beijing saw a grand reopening last week. As grand as the event's name was the guest list, with heavy hitters like Gosha Rubchinskiy, Avi Gold, Simone Rocha and managers from each of the DSM outposts in attendance. Leading the crew was the store's director and COMME des GARÇONS CEO Adrian Joffe and Vice President Dickon Bowden, who planned the Beijing location after eight years of market testing in China. Formerly ITM.B (IT Hong Kong's "Market Beijing"), the completely DSM-rebranded glass building is situated in the center of the city's luxury shopping complex. HYPEBEAST sat down with Joffe, Bowden and Gold ahead of the store's August hard launch to discuss their expansion plans, newly discovered brands, and staying on top of the competition.
How are you envisioning the new landscape for Dover Street Market this year?
: Our first goal is to make DSM Beijing part of the family. China has always been an important market for us, and it's getting better and better. We felt we could give more to the local market by bringing in DSM. The second goal is, we are Adrian opening another DSM in Los Angeles ' Art District in September. That will be DSM Number Six.

Any more expansion plans?

Adrian: We don't want to make more than seven stores. After LA, maybe just one more. No further plans for now.

Why is now the right time to expand?

Adrian: We don't have a right plan. Things happen and we go with the flow. We wing it. We have to be in the moment and do what feels right at the time. I can't tell you why it feels right, it just does. Big companies have five, seven-year plans but I could never understand that. You cannot see that far ahead in fashion. Other cities in China are not on the agenda because no one offered me a building. It has to be an extraordinary space and it's hard to find one.

What do you look for in a new potential market?

Adrian: Environment is important. It needs a lot of people interested in fashion, creation. Open-minded people who want their values expressed. And the building has to be good and unique to the city. Sometimes it's a question of rent.

Can you reveal any hints about the seventh location and its opening time?

Adrian: Paris. End of next year. Hint.

There's been rumors of a Seoul location. The COMME des GARÇONS Seoul flagship has recently began selling brands like NikeLab and Gosha Rubchinskiy. At Samsung, which runs CdG Seoul, there's an internal confusion regarding the difference between the branding of CdG Seoul and DSM Seoul. Are CdG and DSM competitors?

Adrian: No. Each country is very different and Seoul is a very particular place. There are already a lot of mini DSMs. Korea is an exciting, big market for us. But we don't like to have fixed formulas. Some places lend themselves to DSM, some places lend themselves to CdG, some both. In London, we only have DSM. In New York, we have both. In Paris, right across the CdG store, we have the Trading Museum which is like a mini DSM. In Seoul, we thought this hybrid version would create a synergy between CdG and DSM. We wanted to keep it CdG because the building is very Rei Kawakubo. We made the rules so we can break the rules. I think it's a good thing if people are confused.

"We made the rules so we can break the rules."

DSM is all about diversity. How do you select your brands?

Adrian: We just ask brands and they say "yes!" The idea of DSM from the beginning is not to worry about borders and category. Everybody is in it together. There're no borders between people in the mind. We are all together as human beings, as humanity. Retail should be the same. We don't want to be categorized into one box and sell only expensive things or only cheap things. It's not always easy to balance but we try anyway.

Dickon: It's about being like-minded. We are all very different but think the same. We are all people with something to say. DSM gives brands the opportunity and freedom to express themselves through their spaces. They can release themselves from the metrics of department stores or shopping malls. They are uninhibited with us. They clash, but that's the most interesting, good thing about DSM.

Are there plans to bring Palace or Supreme to Beijing?

Adrian: We'd like to. We can't have them together because they're rivals. Too like-minded. Where we have Palace, we don't have Supreme. Where we have Supreme, we don't have Palace. I think Palace will come to Beijing.

"Big fashion brands are sucking the blood of skate culture."

Do you think they're still pure skate brands?

Avi: They're both core skate brands, it's just that they got adopted by fashion. A lot of my friends work at Supreme and are skateboarders first. They don't really care about fashion. The perception of Supreme may be a fashion brand, but most people that are affiliated to it understand it's about skateboarding. Collaborating is a business move, but for my brand and the ones mentioned, it's more about what makes sense, regardless of financial gain it has to make sense. I guess some could argue Louis Vuitton, was in a way, a bit unexpected.

Adrian: It's a business. Big fashion brands are sucking the blood of skate culture. And people should be free to do what they want. Why shouldn't they do that? We should not worry that Gucci wants to collaborate with Dapper Dan if Dapper Dan is okay with it. Why not? We shouldn't criticise them.

: Both brands are fundamentally rooted in skate culture and their values are rock solid. The fact that they collaborated with Dickon Louis Vuitton, an absolutely iconic luxury house, is inspiring. But real skateboarders don't care. I think it has to do with appropriation of skate by the luxury house. They're lost like moths flying toward the light. Mainstream going to skate. I don't know what's considered authentic now.

Adrian: I don't know what streetwear is as opposed to sportswear and luxury. It's all blurred, which is a good thing. Borders lock creation.

Have you discovered any new brand recently?

Adrian: The most exciting brand for us right now is Youths in Balaclava from Singapore. It's a community of 10 to 15 musicians, graphic designers, fashion designers who are very individualistic and strong in the culture. You will see it at all our DSM stores hopefully in August, September. The future of streetwear is in China, Korea, Japan. Koreans are catching up very quickly and are going to overtake Japan soon. A lot of talented Chinese designers are also getting better and more original.

Have you seen a shift in demand for womenswear in streetwear?

Adrian: It's a market with great potential and exciting prospects. Streetwear for women is not so strong right now. We are always looking for more streetwear for women. I think it's hard because streetwear comes from skateboard culture and skateboard culture is mainly male. We have started to work with brands like Ashley Williams and Mademe who could be called female streetwear. A lot of sportswear brands are working really hard to make women's. Nike 's customer is 80% male and it's an internal challenge for them. Palace, too. Places like DSM and HYPEBEAST need to work together to find more streetwear for the ladies.

There's been an increase in popularity for lifestyle brands in perfume, furniture and technology. Take COS and Hay, or Virgil Abloh and IKEA, Byredo, for example. Does DSM have any plans to expand more into these product categories?

Adrian: We are a pure fashion brand. That's what we do and what we know. There're definitely no plans to go into furniture. We love lifestyle, but we'd like to stick with what we know. I think that's just clothing and accessories.

Why is there no Rose Bakery at DSMB and Singapore?

Adrian: It's hard to do Rose Bakery there because of their locations. We aren't sure how to distribute organic food there. In Beijing, there's so much F&B around, and in Singapore, we have a cafe next door run by our partner.

DSMB's new seasonal installations include nine special spaces. Which is your favorite?

Adrian: I like Avi's Better Hotdog Stand the most. It's called Better so it must be better.

You go from Avi: Prada to a hotdog stand in one store. The beauty of DSM is the experience for everyone.

As a store that holds the utmost importance to physical experience, how do you view and strategize your web shop?

Adrian: To be honest, we don't like it very much. But online is a service for people who don't live in the six cities we do. We also hope it introduces DSM to people who don't know us.

Do you ever grow tired of fashion?

Adrian: All the time. Fashion is so controlled and corporate. A lot of things in fashion is about the bottom line, about making money. We need that, but sometimes the system bears down quite heavily. But I could never look down on fashion because it's a way for people to express themselves and their identity. It's the best kind of art.

Dover Street Market Beijing
Xingfusancun 4th Alley, Chaoyang Qu
Beijing Shi, China, 100001

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The Father of CdG and DSM, Adrian Joffe, Talks New Beijing Outpost and Reveals Paris Expansion

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After a soft opening in February, Dover Street Market Beijing saw a grand reopening last week. As grand as the event's name was the guest list, with heavy hitters like Gosha Rubchinskiy, Avi Gold, Simone Rocha and managers from each of the DSM outposts in attendance.