Bar tables at American Ice Co. serve as makeshift merchandise shelves at Butler & Claypool's first pop-up shop. Photograph by Kyle Gustafson
Pop-up shops—which appear for short bursts of time and are filled with can’t-get-anywhere-else items—are a new way to support local designers and score one-of-a-kind buys. Setting up in everything from trendy bars to former campaign headquarters, these temporary storefronts also bring foot traffic to less explored neighborhoods.
Past favorites have included vintage collective Butler & Claypool’s one-day shop at American Ice Co., GarmentDistrict’s 28-day showcase of Washington clothing designers and visual artists at former DC mayor Anthony Williams’s old offices, and the Mt. Pleasant Temporium, a neighborhood venture that grossed more than $31,000 in sales.
Because they’re independently organized, there’s no way to predict where and when the next pop-up will sprout. For updates, sign up for our Shop Around and Where & When newsletters at washingtonian.com/newsletters.
This article appears in the July 2011 issue of The Washingtonian.
