In which I belatedly discover the "pop-up" store concept

I am not trendy.

But I could use a good suit, so I read Jesse Stay's recent post with interest. Stay discussed a company called Dress Code that comes to your home or office, takes your measurements, and provides you with a high-quality suit at an affordable price (according to Stay).

While reading Stay's post, I ran across this sentence:

Give them a try - they have reps in a couple states already, and I hear they're doing a "Popup" shop in Los Angeles soon.

For whatever reason, I had never heard of pop-up stores before. My exposure to the pop-up concept was from the old VH1 TV show that presented "pop-up videos" with running text commentary on various music videos. (VH1's favorite comment - "but.")

So I researched the topic, and found this article.

If new products can come and go, why can't the stores that display them do the same? Well, you guessed it, retail outlets increasingly do. From gallery-like shopping spaces with one-off exhibitions to mobile units bringing innercity-chic to rural areas, TRENDWATCHING.COM has noticed an increase in temporary retail manifestations around the world.

We've dubbed this trend POP-UP RETAIL, as these initiatives have a tendency to pop up unannounced, quickly draw in the crowds, and then disappear or morph into something else, adding to retail the fresh feel, exclusivity and surprise that galleries, theatres and Cirque du Soleil-adepts have been using for years.

Oh...I left out one part of the article.

First published in January 2004

I guess I'm a little behind the curve on this one.

In my defense, the product that my company sells is not distributed through retail outlets, much less "pop-up" retail outlets. Perhaps this will change. Perhaps one day you'll see me at the Montclair (California) Plaza, near the elevator, calling out to passersby, "Hey! Got a million bucks for an AFIS?"

Regarding Dress Code, they currently schedule appointments in most of Utah (Stay is from the Salt Lake City area) and in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. Their "pop-up" locations, visited 1-2 times per year, not only include Los Angeles, but also San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Dallas, Chicago, and New York.