THE DIGITAL ROUTE: As it gears up for international expansion — to the Americas, next — Sham Kar Wai’s Hong Kong-based retail conglomerate I.T is celebrating its 30th anniversary with a one-day pop-up exhibit in Paris on Tuesday, as well as exclusive products with 100 different labels sold online. The emphasis is on streetwear.
The company teamed with Just an Idea, Sarah Andelman’s consultancy agency, as well as Kerry Murphy, founder of The Fabricant, who was the creative force behind the digital fashion experiences of the futuristic display in a showroom in the French capital’s Marais district.
Rows of screen-lined glass displays feature merchandise, while images of clothing are projected on the screens.
In one glass display, an Ambush teddy bear charm rotates on a shelf above a pair of muddied, white Golden Goose superstar sneakers, also spinning around.
A silvery Marques’Almeida puffer coat sits in a display case nearby, a plastic hand shooting down beside it, clutching a shiny Acne tote bag with colorful portrait of a man with a green ponytail on top of his head.
Tucked to one side, visitors can film themselves in a room with swirling, shiny confetti of all colors. Gadgets are on the other side of the room,

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PARIS — Fans of Martin Margiela will have an opportunity to snap up some museum-grade items from the private collections of his inner circle during Artcurial’s upcoming auction of 277 rare and exceptional pieces by the Belgian designer.
Coming on the heels of two major Paris retrospectives last year at the Palais Galliera fashion museum and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, the online sale from March 6 to 11 coincides with a double anniversary: the birth of Maison Martin Margiela in 1989 and the departure of its reclusive founder in 2009.
Pénélope Blanckaert, Hermès vintage and fashion arts director at Artcurial, curated an exhibition of the lots with Christophe Brunnquell, former artistic director at Purple magazine. It will run at Artcurial’s headquarters from Feb. 26 to March 6, coinciding with Paris Fashion Week.
“It’s rare to have such a complete sale,” Blanckaert told WWD. “We have pieces from the first collection to the last. I love that — it’s truly a retrospective.”
The items on offer include selections from professional collectors like Emmanuelle and Philippe Harros, the duo behind Quidam de Revel, and Hideo Hashiura, the owner of cult Tokyo vintage shop Laila, who is believed to own around 4,000 Margiela pieces.
Then there are

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Demna Gvasalia loves ugly sneakers. He’s sanguine that so many brands have copied the ones he did for Balenciaga. But he’s full of anger at the world, which he vents on the Vetements runway.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. It seems the designer is as prone to being misunderstood as he is for spawning trends.
In a wide-ranging interview, Gvasalia cleared the air on a number of misconceptions about his design process, confessed to reading “The Power of Now” daily, articulated the thinking behind Balenciaga’s unconventional Instagram account, and also let slip he’s had it with pre-collections, and all-night partying.
Oh, and the designer who initially made waves by draining collections of seasonal themes and narratives, simply drawing up lists of garments before embarking on a new collection, is now getting in touch with his cinematic side and eager to tell stories on the runway.
“If I wasn’t making clothes, I’d probably be making movies,” he said over a plate of perfectly piled French string beans at Caviar Kaspia in Paris, his lanky frame shrouded in a roomy black Vetements hoodie with an arm patch reading “One size fits most.” “We work kind of like in a movie, dressing this cast, this community of Balenciaga people.”
In

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