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Temper Magazine

Thanks to China Fashion and Urban Lifestyle specialist Elsbeth van Paridon for covering Pawnstar at Temper Magazine in this article. Temper tends to cover on-the-moment topics with a fashion slant including LGBT and androgyny, New York City’s Chop Suey Club, beauty and body image, and everything else having to do with China’s new youth.

Here is one of her observation from the article on Pawnstar:

“The Chinese millennial is changing their shopping patterns, marking a strong taste for the new, yet a bleak attention-span for that same newly acquired view. In other words, these consumers are perpetually getting rid of their been-there-done-that boring booty and on the lookout for some fresh (fashion) tasty. “

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Market Trench @ Pawnstar

Market Trench is a project by Luke Cardew, all-round creative, maker, designer and founder of Shanghai-based boutique firm LCDC. Luke models one above. These are made from one of the most recognizable materials – or really patterns – in China today. These are the famous red, white, and blue bags that contain all of the possessions migrant workers might need for their years of life building the fast-growing cities of China or working in a factory. In Chinese, they are referred to as either “woven bags” (编织袋) or “snakeskin bags” (蛇皮袋) though the material is plastic.

The red, white, and blue bags of migrant laborers symbolize the process of China’s rapid urban development as the corrugated blue sheets that used to keep passersby out of construction sites. My old friend gallerist Tally Beck used to have a piece of artwork inspired by the blue sheets in his Beijing apartment and my new friend Luke Cardew has created the Market Trench, inspired by the bags of the migrant laborers.

Pawnstar will welcome December with a Market Trench activation at our store (Xiangyang North Road 34), this Saturday, Dec. 1, at 9:00pm. Wines are sponsored by Jacob’s Creek.

Click below and scroll past all of the fashion photos to read Luke’s own statement about the Market Trench.

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Serendipity on Xiangyang Road

A French couple (in the red and gray) was shopping at Pawnstar and they met Jeff, a Canadian who works in marketing at Alibaba, who was also buying a lot of great menswear here. After chatting for a while, they found that they had a mutual acquaintance (the guy on the right in the puffer coat) and told him to come over.  We took a photo of them.

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Xiangyang Road

Xiangyang Road, the new home of Pawnstar, ranks among the most charming, bustling stretches of Shanghai’s Former French Concession – with dumpling and noodle shops, artisanal bars, and tiny shoe repair and key cutters often within feet of each other. The area manages to be exceedingly hip while maintaining much of its pre-gentrification flavor due to the enduring presence of many of the older inhabitants in the neighborhood. They don’t get priced out here. Xiangyang Road is exactly the sort of organic, messy, dense, colorful, and extremely walkable neighborhood that urbanist Jane Jacobs had in mind and it has not suffered the homogenization – Duane Reade-ization – of much of Manhattan just yet – though there are warning signs. The norm for urban China is, of course, homogenous indeed in terms of chains and architectural diversity.