High Fashion Fun: Fendi’s Arcade Game Pop-Up

Acknowledging the fact that high fashion isn’t always renowned for having a sense of humour, Italian brand Fendi has opened an arcade-themed pop-up in luxury London department store Harrods.

Dubbed Fendi Fun, the space combines visual merchandising reminiscent of funfairs and 80s video games such as Pac-Man, displaying fur pieces encased in claw-grab vending machines arcade-game cases. Neon signs come in the shape of iconic handbags. The brand hopes the retro styling will be a hit with its younger generation of millennial consumers, as well as those who played these games first time around. 

Fendi has explained the whimsical styling of the pop-up with the line: “Emotion and irony are the other side of luxury” – a nod to the slowly surfacing luxury trend for using wit as well as style to boost brand kudos. For more, see Prada and Lanvin's fashion films, highlighted in Media & Marketing’s Creative Advertising Directions: Fashion.

Open from June 3-28, the store will include handbag lines exclusive to Harrods as well as a personalised monogramming service. The ‘while you wait’ service is set up to monogram handbags in English or Arabic – catering to Harrods’ substantial Saudi Arabian fan base. For more on the value of and demand for personalisation, see Experimentation & Co-Creation in our Future of the Store Industry Trend. 

For more on how luxury brands are engaging with the Gen Y audience, read Luxury Online for Millennials. See also Fendi Flagship Embraces Art Ethos, and the Fendi Show in Social Media & Tech Partnerships.

For more on recent fashion pop-ups, see Spring Beauty Pop-Ups, Retail Activism: Kenzo’s Pop-Up, Hashtags for Handbags: Marc Jacobs, and Branded Experiences at Coachella.