Koché: Creating a New Retail Experience for Streetwear

During Spring Fashion Week 2019, MA Fashion Studies students presented Localité Koché, a collaboration with the Paris-based brand Koché, at Parsons Paris' exhibition space. Work on the project began in the fall of 2018, when second-year master’s students explored issues of branding, image-making, and promotion in connection to fashion retailing, working closely with the founder and designer Christelle Kocher and event director Julien Lacroix.

Led by the artist Justin Morin, students were asked to imagine what could be the first Koché commercial space, one embodying the brand’s imaginary and aesthetics. Founded in 2015, Koché works at the intersection of couture know-how, streetwear attitude, and youth culture. During this project, the class had the unique opportunity to analyze the brand’s philosophy and translate it into a contemporary approach to brand identity and retail experience. All projects were produced under the guidance of fashion journalist and critic Tiffany Godoy, photographer Olle Bengtsson, and art director Michael Thorsby.

Localité Koché presented the results of this process from February 28 to March 7, 2019, in two window installations by the students Philippa Nesbitt and Angelene Suet Fong. Nesbitt and Fong proposed a retailing atmosphere that aimed to disrupt stereotypical imaginaries of Paris and displace its retailing geographies. The title of the exhibition was chosen to evoke the idea of community proposed by Koché, the various meanings of “local” in the contemporary global context, and the importance of rethinking the spaces and modalities of global fashion retailing.