James Morelos, Founder of Mojave Flea Revitalizing Retail One Trading Post at a Time – WWD

Mojave Flea founder James Morelos is revitalizing retail one exchange at a time.

What started as the Phenicia Flea pop-up maker’s market in upstate New York in 2014 sells Artisan-Collage’s upcycled table cloth lace shorts ($300) and hand-knit plush cacti ($78). , has evolved into three permanent brick-and-mortar marketplaces in California. ), All Roads Jacquard ‘Desert Floor’ Blanket ($198), Lust and Fond Vintage Issey Miyake Pieces, Mojave Moon Apothecary Roller Ball Fragrance ($24), and other shipments.

Since opening its first store in Palm Springs, Calif. on January 1, 2021, Morelos has generated more than $7 million in sales and has opened stores in Yucca Valley near Joshua Tree, the Ferry Building in San Francisco and soon Berkeley, Calif. We have expanded our store. , and Hudson Valley, New York.

Morelos, who grew up in Los Angeles, ran a design store in Brooklyn, New York, and moved to the desert in 2018, says: Then, when people saw an opportunity to flee the city due to COVID-19, he pivoted to his own brick-and-mortar stores.

In December, he will debut his next concept, Market Market. Market His Market is his 40,000-square-foot All-His Vintage Marketplace in Old Stein’s Mart in Palm Springs, a space curated by RTH designer René His Holgin, Maurizio Donnadi for furniture, home We deal in groceries and clothing. Transnomadica, designer and collector his Trina Turk, aloha shirt lover Red Dot Hawaii and more.

“I love James’ commitment to bringing new experiences to brands and customers,” says Holguin, who closed Los Angeles’ RTH, once called “America’s Coolest Store,” at GQ.

“We want to create a vintage paradise,” says Morelos. “There is a growing movement to use deadstock and vintage textiles to make new things.

For now, Palm Springs shoppers can visit the interactive 10,000-square-foot Mojave Free Trading Post on North Indian Canyon Drive. Also, browse handcrafted gauze dresses, antique baskets, and naturally dyed pillows by Joshua Tree-based design shops Geode and Gypsum.

Listen to live mariachi music, pick up a bouquet at the local Hermano Flower Shop, whose slogan is “Flowers for Music and Art,” and buy wine and snacks at Palm Springs’ bottle shop. -, LGBTQ-, disability-, BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, people of color]- Owned.

Under a shop-in-shop model, each brand or provider pays a flat monthly vendor service fee for the space, while Morelos and his team provide insurance, merchandising, staffing and credit. Responsible for sales including card processing fees.

“From our point of view, trying to open a 100 to 200-square-foot store not only costs more, but it doesn’t get as many foot traffic as we do. It’s about the power of numbers, you You know what I mean? And do you want to sit there or do you want to manage someone to sit there? We’re the retail solution,” says Morelos. “People are starting to realize that we can be open 24/7 and it doesn’t have to be. If you’re a maker, designer, or vintage picker, that’s what you want to do. Travel to America Send it back, we’ll commercialize it, so we’ve been able to work with over 200 different manufacturers and merchants.”

Beyond overhead, all proceeds go to the shop owner. Among them are niche manufacturers like Twentynine Palms and multi-brand retailers like California-based hat designer Todd Fink and Open Editions, a store specializing in San Francisco artist-designed goods. There is the concept itself.

The result is an amazing array of fun products, from cologne-shaped candles to embroidered thank you tote bags, paper goods with Japanese-inspired designs, and style books.

“It’s not a homogenous single point of view store. Every 10 feet has a completely different brand expression,” says Morelos. “I really believe that the over-engineered, over-made, million-dollar interiors are over. Nobody needs it. What they want is brand discovery, saw It’s a purchase that never happened and a meaningful experience.”

“James tried to take a chance on Opal Atlas before I launched my first product,” says Marlene Dunlevy, a brand of artistic souvenirs such as Joshua Tree patches and palm tree pins. increase. “I started with one small souvenir booth. By next month, I plan to have three Opal Atlas shops, one in every Mojave Flea. We also started a store, and the concept has grown tremendously with Mojave Free Palm Springs and Yucca Valley.”

Earlier this year, Mojave Flea joined Ron Herman for a three-month pop-up that included high-end labels like Ulla Johnson and Dries Van Noten. “This is insane because when I was in middle school, I used to take the RTD bus to Melrose to go shopping to Fred Segal,” says Morelos. “People who started this whole concept decades ago now want to be a part of what I created. It’s just an amazing cycle of inspiration,” he says, referring to Segal’s shop.・We recognize the benefits of the in-shop format.

Morelos grew up in LA and moved to Seattle in the 90’s to work in the music business, eventually working at Rudy’s Barber Shop at the first Ace Hotel. “I fell in love with being surrounded by creative people and it affected the trajectory of my life,” he says of the experience.

He landed in New York City in 2001 to work at Bumble and Bumble, opened his own salon in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2002, and opened Scandinavian Grace in 2007, his first foray into retail. Did. One in Brooklyn and one in Phenicia in the Catskills.

When the recession hit, the Brooklyn store collapsed and burned, but the Phenicia location remained consistent.

“We’ve found that destination-based retail can thrive in any situation when people are there, weekends, vacations, day trips…it’s not grounded in reality,” he says.

After taking the flea market concept west in 2018, he fell in love with Palm Springs and moved to a desert community in the heat of July.

When the COVID-19 lockdown began in March 2020, he was producing pop-up markets on LA’s The Row Downtown and Culver City platforms, in addition to Ace in Palm Springs. After everything shut down, he first tried to start selling online.

“But my experience with Scandinavian Grace during the recession made me pivot to building a brick-and-mortar market. ‘” he says of the trend to focus on smaller markets, with the Hamptons, Aspen and other suburban neighborhoods becoming new retail destinations during the pandemic.

In October 2021, we added a 10,000-square-foot store in Yucca Valley near Joshua Tree, and earlier this year, we added a 5,000-square-foot Fog City Flea in the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

He still runs several roaming pop-up maker markets, including Southern Free, which tours Richmond, Virginia. Charlottesville, North Carolina and Chattanooga, Tennessee will launch him in November, while Evergreen Free will launch in Portland, Oregon for his holiday season. He sees them as proof-of-concept experiments for brick-and-mortar stores of the future.

“There is so much richness in every corner of this country. As someone who curates stores and markets, it is very inspiring to see the textures, aesthetics and technology of different regions. It doesn’t make sense in upstate New York,” Morelos says. “It makes me roll my eyes.”