Here Today And Gone Tomorrow

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When Jack Spade, a maker of fashionable bags and accessories for men, unveiled its debut clothing line this month, it did something different.

Because the New York company has no store on the West Coast, it decided to feature its latest line at a newly opened temporary store in Beverly Hills known as a pop-up shop.

“What it did was give an opportunity to give a snapshot of our brand in a location we wouldn’t ordinarily have the chance to do it,” said Cuan Hanly, the company’s vice president.

The shop, which will feature live DJs and other unusual attractions, will only be around until the end of October. And you don’t have to be a shopaholic to find other pop-ups.

For years, those in the know have frequented the temporary, typically bare-bones operations, which often feature pricey, fashionable clothes and other high-end wares for just a few weeks. But it’s not just exclusive boutiques and high-end labels setting up shop anymore. These days, mass-market retailers are getting in on the trend.

Gap Inc., trying to shed its mass-market image, recently opened a pop-up on Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills that will display its premium 1969 denim line until Sept. 27.

Paradoxically, Space 15 Twenty, a retail spot in Hollywood that features hip stores such as Urban Outfitters Inc., has a permanent pop-up space reserved for trendy boutiques and labels to show their goods for a month at a time.

More fleeting was the downtown pop-up record store opened by rocker Jack White. Third Man Records and Novelties, which hosted a concert by White’s new band, the Dead Weather, opened for a brief, three-day run in late August.

One reason pop-ups are becoming more popular: Landlords looking to fill empty storefronts these days will take what they can get. Margaret Schell, co-owner of SPR Communications, an L.A. fashion management agency, said she had a client recently who kept a pop-up open for several months in part because “the landlord was very willing to oblige.”

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