Store gallery: Gap, Boxpark, London

‘Edited’ and ‘curated’ are two of the more annoying buzzwords in store marketing circles at the moment. Apart from there being apparently little difference between the two, they also serve as shorthand for the clichéd idea that less merchandise can mean more impact. That said, occasionally there are stores that really do look edited and one is the new Gap store at pop-up mall Boxpark in East London.

This is a very small unit and apart from the fact that there is a Gap logo over the door and on an A-stand, it neither looks nor feels like an interior from the all-American purveyor of casualwear. Indeed, the sense is almost of a trendy East End indie, rather than any kind of chain-store offshoot.

To an extent this is because the offer that is contained in this very minimal store environment is indeed edited or curated. All of the merchandising takes place along the perimeter, with a mix of side and forward-facing garments being presented to the shopper and dark wood planking used for the floor. The only concession made internally to this being a Gap store is at the cash desk, where a digital light box flashes brand images at the onlooker.

The stock itself represents the “high-fashion” end of what Gap has to offer, according to a member of staff, and the concentration is on streetwear. It goes to show that by taking a specific merchandise area and removing it from its normal middle-of-the-road context, it is possible to create something that is almost entirely different.

That is the essence of good pop-up retailing and what Gap has done in this instance shows how easy it is to change shopper perceptions about a brand by deploying some judicious editing.