This week Vogue Nippon, in collaboration with avanteguard Japanese fashion house Comme des Garcons, celebrated the launch of “Magazine Alive”, their new pop- up shop in Tokyo’s trendy Aoyama district. On hand to fete the event were some of Japan’s most prolific fashion editors, artist Takashimi Murakami (who designed the second floor of the shop with his signature pop- art infused flowers and designs), Comme Des Garcons creator Rei Kawakubo, and former protege- turned- fashion- powerhouse Junya Watanabe. The space itself (housed in the former location of the pop-up Louis Vuitton x Comme Des Garcons boutique) will be selling a  [...]

Over the last few years, pop-up stores have moved from being a novelty to a phenomenon to a retail rite of passage. Now, hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear about some label or other setting up temporary shop in a shipping crate, public park, or even inside another store altogether.
But there’s something different about the Comme des Garcons version, which has never called itself a “pop-up shop” but rather prefers the nomme de guere “guerilla store.” CDG has been operating guerrilla stores since February 2004, setting up their first shop in East Berlin, then next in Barcelona [...]