New Address, Same Name: Inside the New Dover Street Market
By Something Curated
Since its founding in 2004, Dover Street Market has consistently broken, set, and then broken all over again the dominant conventions of luxury retail display and experience, and its new location in Haymarket is no different. Just over a decade ago, President of Comme des Garçons Adrian Joffe and his work+life partner and Creative Director of Dover Street Market Rei Kawakubo, opened the doors of the very first Dover Street Market with a precise mission: to create an inside space for outsiders, a space where renegades and dissidents of the industry could take solace in new visions, a space for risk-taking and chasing one’s boundless imagination. Now with four locations worldwide, DSM is something like a micro-universe itself: still as fiercely independent and guileless as ever, but watched as closely by industry giants as the individuals who inspired it.
While the design follows a similar algorithm in all four stores, DSM somehow manages to be both iconic and irreplicable — perhaps because they’re all design-led by Kawakubo. All five floors of the 31,000 sq. ft (that’s 20,000 sq. ft. larger than the original, by the way), 1911 warehouse building, which, in no small feat of irony, was for over a century the headquarters of Burberry, are populated by a number of elaborate multi-sensory installations, ranging from audio works to fluorescent light sculptures. Kawakubo was required to retain the building’s impressive façade, whose ornate limestone details, columns, and overall armoured appearance serves an almost perfect foil for the interior, which can only be described as convergence point of happy-go-lucky playground and minimalist industrial aesthetic. Adorning the rails are collections by Gucci, Raf Simons, Rick Owens, Dior, much-hyped Vetements and Valentino, as well as seven Comme des Garçons lines, among others. Like other DSM editions, the Haymarket’s newest resident features an event space, a bakery and luncheon kiosk as well as gallery spaces.
“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,” Rei Kawakubo.
Clambering around the multi-media displays, the space feels as much a collective workshop and brainstorming space as it does a display for ready-to-wear items. The balance CDG has struck between creativity and business finds a physical outlet here. As creative director of the space, Kawakubo has designed much of the interiors, including a metal dinosaur snaking around the staircase on the second floor and an ensemble of fluorescent-lit “rain sculptures” which illuminate many displays throughout the building. Each floor has its own theme and installations, with Kawakubo personally inviting artists from across the globe to lend a helping hand. All-over and hardly perceivable without a respectful heads-up, Brooklyn-based sound artist and long-time collaborator of DSM Calx Vive has returned to the Haymarket store with an audio piece for each floor. The concept is to use distinct audio configurations to combine and contrast with the “textural sounds” already at play, to enhance the unique sensations at work on each floor.
To wet your palette for the day of discovery ahead (trust us, you’ll want a full day here), we’ve selected a few stand-out installs occupying the new and improved London Dover Street Market.
Basement:
Keeping with tradition, the DSM Haymarket’s basement is reserved for street brands. And, like usual, the Sneaker Space causes a huge buzz. This time around you’ll notice a new kid on the block: Paul Smith makes his debut into DSM’s new store. But we’d like to politely divert your attention to the equally-buzzed-about-but-not-yet-surfaced Gosha Rubchinsky, whose space features intoxicating imagery of Moscow’s skyline, sourced from Gosha’s third book, Youth Hotel. Gosha designed all the furniture featured here exclusively for DSM.
Ground Floor:
Amidst CDG’s ground floor hub, which features 7 different brands produced under the wing of Comme des Garçons, is Legs In The Air, a structure of interlocking chairs rising to the ceiling on which Stephen Jones’ pieces are placed. Beside it is the Comme des Garçons Beatles space, a vintage cabinet housing the Comme des Garçons Beatles collection.
Not to be missed (but honestly, how could you miss it?) is a DSM staple: the Birds Nest Perfume Tower, with all its resident fragrances from Comme des Garçons Parfums.
First Floor:
The first floor lets brands take the centerstage, reflective of their own values and direction. Vetements, for example, has stepped aside from the more glitzy installs like NikeLab’s hologram or CDG’s golden wall with which it shares floorspace, to instead evoke everyday, neutralized interiors of the basic fitting room. J.W. Anderson, alternatively, was inspired once again by his Northern Irish memory bank, reminiscing upon a children’s playground in his hometown Magherafelt. Anderson credits the bucolic and sleepy backdrop of his childhood to have inspired him to “think big,” a fight-or-flight skill which consistently keeps his avant-garde designs razor sharp.
Second Floor:
Raf Simons
Thom Browne
Third floor:
Aside from CDG paraphernalia, the third floor of DSM Haymarket will largely serve as a project space, with rotating exhibitions and events alongside Dover Street’s signature eatery, the Rose Cafe. Currently on show is ‘Frances’ by Frances von Hofmannsthal, daughter of the First Earl of Snowdon. The installation is a replica of the studio belonging to Frances’ father, a widely renowned photographer and filmmaker. The niche space will house a series of handmade coats, as well as an assortment of bags, antique canvases, and a makeshift portrait studio complete with burnt orange backdrop and antique wooden chair.
