When Kanye west announced that Portland was going to be one of the locations for the 21 pop up shops around the world, my inner hypebeast was ecstatic. The wait for where the shop would be located felt like forever, constantly checking Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit for updates. Until finally the location was announced and to my surprise the shop was going to be help at Clackamas Town Center. The hype for the shops was unreal with lines beginning the night the locations were released.
This was my spot in line when me and my girlfriend got to the shop at around 4:30 in the afternoon, the day of the pop up shop opening. The scene was almost surreal to me, seeing others dressed in things I've only seen online. While waiting in line I got into a conversation with the people in front of me about clothing and how Kanye West has us in line in 100 degree weather for his clothing. Coincidentally the person I was talking to was actually the first person in line that night and was just back to buy seconds, I got to ask him about the experience of camping out and seeing the lines grow gradually larger and larger as the day went on. He told me at one point the line wrapped around the corner of the mall and was peaking out at the near by Chipotle. Luckily when me and my girlfriend got there, the line was only 50 feet away from the store.
As time went on the line progressively got shorter and shorter. With the store only allowing 15 people in at a time to shop, I grew anxious if I would be able to get anything, fearing that the pieces I wanted would sell out before I had the chance to see have them in my hands. Being 830th in line for the day, I could hear the security saying they are running out of tickets to hand out, handing out the 1000th ticket. To put this in perspective the Portland shop was the tamest of the stores, and the 1000th ticket was given out by mid day. After being in line for nearly an hour, we were finally in the front and were let in.
The store was extremely minimal, with white walls and a glosses cement floor. Kanye's "The Life of Pablo" was blasting over the speakers and the Portland logo was on one wall with 6 racks full of clothing were lined up across the store for you to look at . When entering an employee would give you and almost menu like pamphlet and you would circle what you want along with the size and they would grab it in the back for you. The employees were very quick with the orders and you would get them almost immediately get what you wanted. Thankfully they had my size in the shirt I wanted and bought it in an instant. That was the end of day one but I couldn't get enough and was back on Saturday to try and get another item. To my surprise there was no line at all when I got there and went right in. There were a couple of items sold out such as the purple "I feel like Pablo" shirt and a hoodie but I got the second shirt I wanted with out a problem.
Hopefully more of these pop up like shops come to Portland because we don't get enough of these events in our city, and with a show out like what the Pablo store did over the weekend more companies may take notice in the Northwest demographic.
