Pearls
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Mikimoto retail gallery roves to Malibu
By Catherine Dayrit
July 09, 2009
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| Mikimoto partnered with fashion designer Kevan Hall for a four-day gallery event. |
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Malibu, Calif.--For the past few years, everyone from trendy apparel brands such as Uniqlo to major airlines such as Delta have explored the "pop-up" retail concept, involving ephemeral stores that basically appear and then disappear within a few days, providing a feeling of exclusivity and generating buzz during the short time span they're open.
While the format has lent itself to purveyors of T-shirts and other relatively inexpensive wares, jewelers, stocked with pricey goods, appear to be more wary of the game.
But luxury pearl brand Mikimoto has been exploring a variation of the concept lately.
For four days this summer, from Thursday, June 18, through Sunday, June 21, Mikimoto partnered with fashion designer Kevan Hall for a limited run at The Lumber Yard, a hip new shopping destination in Malibu, Calif.
Together the brands set up shop in a brand-new retail space, one of many at The Lumber Yard that will later permanently hold high-end retail brands.
Dawn Moore, store manager of Mikimoto Beverly Hills, says the brand "intentionally has not looked at [the format] as a 'pop-up' store; it's kind of a roving retail gallery."
But among the points in common between the pop-up format and Mikimoto's retail gallery are the short time span that creates a sense of urgency, a venue to test-drive new or more untraditional products, and the intent to introduce the brand to new consumers.
For Mikimoto, the format also allowed the brand to experiment with consumers' experience of the jewelry.
"How do we reach out to the clients and make the jewelry accessible?" Moore asks. "They have to touch it. This behind-the-glass-case becomes a hurdle. So part of our exploration of this experiment is indeed getting the jewelry out from behind barriers."
While a portion of the jewelry was placed within cases, other designs were styled directly onto body forms, allowing visitors to imagine how they might pair the designs with apparel from Kevin Hall, or other items already in their wardrobes.
Security, of course, was a concern. With tens of thousands of dollars of jewelry on display, openly, a security guard was positioned close by.
"It does require a different strategy, but we wanted people to touch [the jewelry designs], feel them," Moore says.
Over the gallery's four-day duration, about 150 people passed through its doors, driven by online initiatives, including e-vites and bloggers. Promotion beforehand was strictly viral; no invitations were printed and no ads were displayed.
Two special events also helped to drive traffic, one hosted by Jodi Wing, author of The Art of Social War, and the other benefiting a local charity.
As for the choice of Malibu as a venue, Moore says the event was about looking for new ways to reach out, and while the high-income niche market of Malibu is located just about 17 miles from Beverly Hills, where Mikimoto has a store, many of those in the elite beach town tend to stay where they are.
"The point strictly is to reach out to clients in areas where Mikimoto is less accessible," Moore says.
The Mikimoto items on display were curated specifically with the Malibu customer in mind.
"The people who joined us that knew and loved Mikimoto were shocked to see the kinds of things we brought--things a little more contemporary, relevant to their lifestyle," Moore says.
Sales were made both at the gallery and afterwards, and Moore says the roving gallery concept is one that Mikimoto will continue to explore.
"You don't want to oversaturate any region with retail doors, so this is a much more cost-efficient form of reaching out to clients because you can really tailor," she says. "It kind of takes the perfect storm; it's the right location, there has to be the right foot traffic and you have to have people who are willing to sponsor events."
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