NEW YORK CITY—Something that pops up means there's an element of surprise. That should be no different in retail. "The best thing to me is it's so much fun," says Jennifer Ettin Swig, who heads business development for the pop-up store GirlBoy, at 87 Mercer St. in SoHo. "The new people you meet, you never know what could turn into something else."
Morgan Hoffman, the head creative director, designer and founder of the brand, creates the women's fashions with her design collaborator Jackie Wotjusik. The brand is GirlBoy—but it's a far cry from Peppermint Patty of the Peanuts or Pat from "Saturday Night Live" (who shopped at the Gap). Hoffman's fashions incorporate the "aesthetics of femininity" with a surprise "twist of a boy." They are priced at about $400 to $2,500 a piece.
Unlike online or catalogue shopping, people come in to touch, feel, try on and "experience" the clothes. But unlike department store shopping, it's not off the rack. Customers order the clothes they like. Instead of pricey SoHo square footage used for racks of merchandise, it's more like a show room with sample pieces. Marketed as a bit edgy, it's literally "fashion forward" as the clothes to order are already the fall line.
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Betsy Kim
Betsy Kim was the bureau chief, East Coast, and New York City reporter for Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. As a lawyer and journalist, Betsy has worked as the director of editorial and content for LexisNexis Lawyers.com, a TV/multi-media journalist for NBC and CBS affiliated TV stations in the Midwest, and an associate producer at Court TV.
