Grey Ant's Pop-Up Store Opens
Following the close of designer Brian Lichtenberg’s pop-up store on Dec. 14, designer Grant Krajecki moved in Dec. 15, morphing the New High (M)art into a Grey Ant pop-up space.
Located at 741 New High St. in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, co-owners T-Rik and Miho Ikeda apply an art-gallery model to clothing retail. Every six weeks, T-Rik said, New High (M)art’s blank 300-square-foot space shifts to a new designer or “thematic retail moments” that jumble multiple designers in one group show.
The Grey Ant opening attracted an artsy, hip crowd of kids donning asymmetrical haircuts and trimmed moustaches. The fashionable guests crowded into the tiny store, which showcased Grey Ant’s current Fall and Holiday line, signature high-waist jeans and new sunglasses collection. Leggings and holey screen-printed T-shirts from the brand’s nearly 10-year-old archives were reissued especially for the pop-up store. A mini-retrospective of Grey Ant’s theatrical pieces, from loud show wigs to custom shoes, added “flavor” to the stark white walls.
“The last few seasons I’ve done have been kind of fancy and classy, so we needed some T-shirts and things,” Krajecki said. “I haven’t done that in a while—sport it up a bit.”
Krajecki was so pleased with the outcome, he said, “I wish I had this all the time,” though his permanent dream store would be leaps beyond an art gallery’s white painted walls and cement floor.
“I wanted to do like a club kid, dragqueen ’90s bedroom or living room with a dirty rug, a bed I was going to saw in half and half a chair. Make it look like a Hollywood living room.”—Rhea Cortado
