Taking Pop-Up Shops to New Heights

During the North Face Mountain Festival, which took place from July 27 to 29 in the Italian Alps, the outdoor brand opened a uniquely situated pop-up shop. Its location: almost 7,000 feet up a mountain.

The Pinnacle Project space, which was reachable only on foot, was built to showcase the North Face’s Pinnacle Archives, a collection of products worn by big-name explorers like Alex Honnold, Conrad Anker, Simone Moro, and Caroline Ciavaldini. The eight collector’s items—bags and jackets worn by the athletes during “pinnacle” moments in their careers—were restored and labelled with a personal message to inspire the new owner.

The items were sold through an online auction on fund-raising platform CharityStars, which ended on August 6. The highest-grossing item was the Antarctica Summit Series L3 Down Jacket worn by rock climber Alex Honnold during his recent expedition in Antarctica. Part of the proceeds from the items will be donated to the Tridentine Alpinist Society, an organization that supports mountaineering in the Dolomites in Italy.

The sky-high pop-up was open to hikers over the course of 10 days. The two-hour hike to the shop was also slotted into the festival’s programming as a group activity for attendees. A version of the shop is slated to travel to Berlin and Manchester, England, next. But the tiny red tent in Italy will be staying put; it was built to transition into a bivouac—a temporary shelter for mountaineers.

Would you hike 7,000 feet up to shop? With views of the Italian Alps as the backdrop for some notable Instagram pics, we just might! Keep your eyes peeled for the red tent in Berlin and England on social media and devour the details of knowing who climbs the mountain next.