Stylites

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.

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.

Pawnstar has moved to Xiangyang North Street, Lane 34, No. 1 (襄阳北路34弄1号) – just a couple blocks from our old location!

There is talk at Pawnstar these days of adopting a fully accessory-focused strategy since these are less challenging from a logistics standpoint.