We will shop you: Queen’s Carnaby Street pop-up opened this morning.
As if a Rolling Stones store was not enough for London’s swinging Carnaby Street, legendary British rock band Queen have opened a pop-up store just a few yards down the road from Mick and the boys to celebrate five decades of performance.
To officially mark 50 years in music, Queen opened their dedicated experiential pop-up shop this morning and the store – Queen The Greatest – will trade until January 2022, with a line-up of limited edition music releases, fashion collaborations and lifestyle products, plus weekly new product drops and events.
To keep the content lively, each month will have a theme; ‘Music’ for October, ‘Art & Design’ for November and ‘Magic’ for December and the Holidays, with visual installations that “act as storytelling from each of Queen’s five decades”.
Trading over ground and basement floors, the zones have been split into ten-year chunks, starting with 1970s thrift store (at the outset, much-loved singer Freddie Mercury and drummer Roger Taylor had a stall at Kensington Market), 1980s iconic live performances and tours from the group’s live pomp, 1990s record store, 2000s DVD homage through to 2010s tech concepts.
A Queen pinball machine. fashion collaborations and limited edition music drops are promised.
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Created in partnership with Bravado, Universal Music Group’s merchandise and brand management company, the store includes fashion collections that will feature collaborations with a host of fashion brands including Champion, Wrangler and Johnny Hoxton jewellery.
“This is a moment in time,” says Keith Taperell, vice president, retail and sales, Bravado, who was looking remarkably relaxed given that the team had just pulled off a 48 hour fit-out ready for the press preview and photography. “Queen are going out on the road again next year and we wanted to celebrate five decades of the band with an immersive and experiential store for Queen’s fans, who are very passionate about them. It was important to mark the occasion.”
Queen Take Fans Through The Decades
Taperell says that the store has been designed as a series of shop-in-shops, each marking out a decade in Queen’s career, and each area has been designed to reflect that, with 1970s wallpaper and the thrift theme for the first decade, for example.
The band’s continuing album and single releases will be a big part of the shop’s operations in October. Limited edition music will be available to buy throughout music month with drops every week, including from this morning a limited edition of a Queen’s Greatest Hits vinyl, exclusive to the store and stamped with the purchase date and location, as well as both current and new solo releases from Brian May and Roger Taylor.
“Only 1,000 of the Greatest Hits vinyl edition are available, 500 in-store and 500 on the band’s online site. Once a week during October we will also be dropping a single, which will be very collectable for the fans,” adds Taperell.
More Drops Planned At Carnaby Street
November will showcase collaborative partners including Japanese designer Tokolo, a limited-edition bear from Steiff and a first viewing of a soon-to-be-released Queen pinball machine. Fusing the “magic of five decades of Queen with the magic of Christmas”, December product launches will include a Rubix Cube, Christmas sweaters, cards, wrapping paper and accessories.
The Queen pop-up store is just down the road from the Rolling Stones outlet.
Taperell says he spent much of the day preceding the launch meeting fans who came to the door hoping that it had already opened, and were keen to share stories of when they saw or met the band.
“That gives me a lot of confidence that the store is going to be a success,” he says. “Because you can see just how much love and passion there is for Queen from all ages. We want this to be a great place for those die-hard fans to come and interact with the merchandise, see Brian May’s guitars and attend events.”
