Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

UK indie fashion icons take their message to the street, the High Street.

By Mary Scoviak

When British sub-culture fashion favorites The Donnelly Brothers and Silver Spoon Attire (SSA) began exploring the idea of a joint retail venture, “We knew we wanted to rewrite the industry’s rules,” says Anthony Donnelley.

The man who co-founded Gio-Goi with his brother Christopher in the midst of Manchester’s 1980s indie dance scene wasn’t likely to go shopping on London’s New Bond Street or Oxford Street for a conventional store. Both the Donnellys and SSA founders Damian Collins and Avigail Claire were looking for a retailing solution with the same immediacy as their clothing. The here-today, gone-tomorrow appeal of a pop-up store was a perfect fit.

Both lines already had sufficient brand strength to fuel interest in their new concept, 143, and get people to check out the Lowndes Court pop-up store (fittingly, just off Carnaby Street). Gio-Goi’s clothing regularly shows up on the right people for their youth-oriented market: rock celebrities such as Anthony Donnelly’s long-time friend Pete Doherty (who collaborated on Gio-Goi’s 2007 spring collection), Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan, Amy Winehouse and The Arctic Monkeys and SSA counts music world A-listers such as Kanye West among its fans. Each company also does brisk direct-to-consumer business on its web site (brisk enough in the case of Gio-Goi to attract the attention of the global brand management company, Pentland Group, which took a 20 percent stake last December).

From the outset the Donnellys and SSA’s leadership saw 143 as a stand-alone retail outlet, not just a complement to their virtual retailing or a build out their existing presence in stores throughout the UK and Europe. “143 will operate as an independent brand,” says Anthony Donnelly. “It will have its own website. Gio-goi is its own animal, acting independently as it has always done.”

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143 (the number of letters in each word of I Love You) morphs the pop-up shop concept from a brand support tool into a landside portal for e-commerce. Unlike the temporary stores that punch up marketing campaigns for brands from banks to discounters, 143 showcases limited edition international products that are “market accessible to all consumer demographics,” says Collins.