London Calling: Blindingly Brilliant Pop-Up Mall Trends For 2016

Boxpark mall CEO Roger Wade may have sold his Boxfresh British street fashion label in 2005, but the leader of London's hip East End pop-up mall is still keeping close tabs on the trends. So what’s in and what’s out for 2016?

In: Shoreditch
Opened in 2011, the industrial-style Boxpark mall, assembled out of 60 300 SF container-ship containers, was supposed to close this year, but its lease has been extended for up to five years, until developers and residents work out an agreement on the future of the parcel.

In: Croydon
This summer, Boxpark will open a second branch in Croydon, London’s largest and perhaps least fashionable borough. Roger sees a great opening. He tells us Croydon is probably one of the last areas in London that hasn’t been redeveloped and there are amazing opportunities there. The local reaction has been incredible, he says. "They’ve seen other parts of London develop but they haven’t seen Croydon develop, and they're saying, ‘We can’t believe Boxpark is coming to Croydon.’ Located next to one of the busiest train stations in Britain, more than 30,000 people will pass by Boxpark Croydon daily—more than 200,000 a week.

Out: Pop-ups
“Increasingly, I think the whole pop-up term is getting completely rinsed," Roger tells us. The original idea was a limited edition product for a limited amount of time, but landlords are increasingly jumping onto the pop-up bandwagon to fill empty space, he says. "I think the customer is getting a bit bored of the concept of the pop-up.” The proprietor of the world's first pop-up mall tells us he's moved away from the concept a bit. "I think with our customers, they’re looking for a little bit of consistency. It was hard to really build up any consistency when you’re constantly doing one-week pop-ups.”

Out: Shopping
It's difficult for independents to survive in an environment where people increasingly buy more goods online, Roger tells us. Bigger independents with wider ranges are surviving while small independents aren't, he says.

In: Eating
“We’re trying to almost build a modern-day version of Covent Garden market. It’s based on smaller units but with a central atrium space that everyone eats in—community-type eating, where they go and pick their food from different vendors but then they come and eat in central areas.”

In: Containers
“Still love ’em,” says Roger, who first used a container as a tradeshow sales space in 2003. “I used to build these miniature stands that used to cost me like 50,000 euros to build, and I thought, 'This is stupid. Why don’t I just build something that I can take away and then bring it back again?' So I built our first container stand and showed it in Berlin at the Tempelhof.” Later he used one for a shop and, later still, Boxpark. “Who knows what’s next? Maybe I’ll be living in a container next.”