As multifunctional places that combine shopping and hospitality with public space and residential functions, urban consumption spaces are sites where different normative orders surface and sometimes clash. In Amsterdam, such a clash emerged over touristification of consumption spaces, eroding place attachment for local residents and urging the city government to take action. Based on policy analysis and interviews with entrepreneurs and key informants, we demonstrate how Amsterdam’s city government is responding to this issue, using legal pluralism that exists within formal state law. Specifically, the city government combines four instruments to manage touristification of consumption spaces, targeting so-called tourist shops with the aim to drive them out of the inner city. This strategic combination of policy instruments designed on various scales and for different publics to pursue a local political goal jeopardizes entrepreneurs’ rights to legal certainty. Moreover, implicitly based on class-based tastes and distrust towards particular minority groups of entrepreneurs, this policy strategy results in institutional discrimination that has far-reaching consequences for entrepreneurs in itself, but also affects trust relations among local stakeholders.
Recent developments in digital technology and consumer culture have created new opportunities for retail and brand event concepts which create value by offering more than solely marketing or transactions, but rather a place where passion is shared. This chapter will define the concept of ‘fashion space’ and consumer experience, and delves into strategies for creating experiences that both align with a brand’s ethos and identity and build brand communities. It will provide insight on creating strong shared brand experiences that integrate physical and digital spaces, AR and VR. These insights can be used for consumer spaces but also for media and buyer events, runway shows, test labs and showrooms. Since its launch in 2007, international fashion brand COS has focused on creating fashion spaces that build and reinforce a COS fashion community. COS retail stores with their extraordinary architecture, both traditional and contemporary, contribute stories and facilitate intense brand experiences. Moreover, COS’ dedication to share the artistic inspirations of its people led to collaborating on interactive and multi-sensory installations which allow consumers to affectively connect to the brand’s personality and values. Thus, the brand was able to establish itself firmly in the lifestyle of its customers, facilitating and developing their aesthetics and values. This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge/CRC Press in "Communicating Fashion Brands. Theoretical and Practical Perspectives" on 03-03-2020, available online: https://www.routledge.com/Communicating-Fashion-Brands-Theoretical-and-Practical-Perspectives/Huggard-Cope/p/book/9781138613560. LinkedIn: https://nl.linkedin.com/in/overdiek12345
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