Guerilla Zine No.6 Ideas for Corporate Salvation
Author
Comme des Garcons Werk Magazine
Date Published
2009
Collections Featured
Various
Contributors
Ideas For Corporate Salvation, the 6th issue of Guerillazine Magazine, is the final part of the one and only visual archive of every COMME des GARÇONS Guerrilla Store that has ever existed. The Guerilla Stores started in 2004 and ended in 2009 and they all revolved around the usage of raw, minimalistic spaces that were previously used for everyday, utilitarian, non-fashion purposes. The pop-up stores were grocery stores, warehouses, and fruit shops in Stalinist-era cities like Helsinski, Berlin, and Reykjavik that were minimally renovated to act as regular showrooms and archive displays for CdG collections. The goal was to spend as little money as possible on the interior designs and what came out of it were a number of extremely successful retail spaces that exceeded sales expectations and helped elevate the avant-garde legacy of COMME des GARÇONS. Stores began to pop-up in more cities like Singapore, Athens, Lebanon, and finally the United States in Los Angeles. Some were sterile and organized while some were full-blown post-war chaotic. The structured chaos of each pop-up store would help define the innovative and out-of-the-box foundations of CdG in the 2000s.
The magazine issue was edited by the notorious Singapore designer Theseus Chan, who started WERK, a magazine that utilizes hands-on intervention to customize each copy. He approached this issue with the same methodology. Copies of Issue 6 were hand-torn, drenched in water, and hand-stressed to look like an artifact. Nails were incorporated to build rust and the entire front and back covers were burned. Not only did this personalize every single copy, it complimented the content about COMME des GARÇONS Guerrilla Stores perfectly. Like the pop-ups, the magazine resembled structure chaos that provided a unique experience to each individual of its audience. It allows for genuine connections with the content within, similar to how someone would receive it when they walk into a COMME des GARÇONS Guerrilla Store in their city.
Writer: Art V.
