Pop-up potential draws a crowd to the Galleria
News spreads lightning-fast on social media, which is what brought lines of shoppers to the Galleria for the release of the Louis Vuitton collaboration with Supreme streetwear last week.
Inside the store, the brand was unveiling its Tambour Horizon watch, its first fully connected timepiece. The smartwatch has a “My Flight” feature that keeps up with flight times, terminal and gate information, reports of delays and much more. It has all of the must-have amenities of a smartphone. The watch sells for $2,450$2,900.
But that’s not what the crowd was waiting for.
Supreme and Louis Vuitton’s collaboration, which was released in June, has a number of celebrity fans — among them Madonna, Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga and rappers Drake and Travis Scott. The collection includes apparel, footwear, leather goods and accessories. A highlight of this collaboration is a red Louis Vuitton bag with the “Supreme” logo.
The runway-meetsstreetwear collaboration has held pop-up sales at LV stores in cities like London, Sydney, Paris, Tokyo and Seoul, where fans in the know have lined up to buy items.
The Supreme x Louis Vuitton logo T-shirt, which pairs Supreme’s classic red logo with the Louis Vuitton monogram on a plain white tee, sold for $485; online resale prices are five times more. The red print hoodie, which retailed for $935, can go for as much as $7,000, according to GQ.
Earlier this month, a pop-up in Los Angeles was closed due to a disorderly crowd. Now the word is that all the remaining events have been canceled.
Bryan Angelle, cofounder of the Sneaker Summit, posted a video on social media of the line outside of the Galleria on Thursday. He said that someone leaked on Instagram that the Supreme collaboration would be available in the Galleria store.
“Word got around and then people started lining up,” he said. “Every Supreme release is an instant sellout. It’s guaranteed.”
Angelle said he received an email from LV saying the collaboration would no longer be sold in any stores or online.
Still, on Friday, a large group, made up mostly of young men, lined the sidewalk on the West Alabama side of the Galleria. Several said they had been waiting since Sunday and had no plans to leave.