Sylt: Why luxury brands now travel after vacationing

Actually, it is quite tranquil in Kampen – at least when the shops are still closed in the morning and the island sleeps. Beautiful thatched roofs, tranquil alleys, everything is clean, hardly any traffic. And it’s small here. Much smaller than the famous place name suggests. This limits the space.

The square meter price for shops? Is in Kampen’s best location at just under 1000 euros. The village center is one of the most expensive shopping miles in Germany. Anyone who has one of the coveted shops here no longer gives it. But the top dogs got competition. Resourceful luxury brands have discovered the second row and open their pop-up stores here. Small shops that are only built up for high season.

Just like on Kampener Hauptstraße, corner of Wattweg: The Swiss brand Longines has been opening its tents for several years. Or rather: your bathrooms and beach chairs in the maritime blue and white. You just fit yourself.

Champagne frolks holidaymakers in colorful leisure shirts and with high -up polo collar and examine the collection. In keeping with the pop-up store, there is also a special model. This year, for example, the manufacturer presents the Conquest Sylt Edition, a sporty automatic watch with a blue dial – typical Sylt. The model is limited to 200 copies per execution, and the price starts at 2250 euros.

However, the watch cannot be bought in the pop-up store. Leave the sale to jewelers on the other side of the street. Sounds complicated? No, that works as an effective advertising. Longines is silent about the specific quantities, but according to the company, the Sylt special editions in particular are often sold out within the season. If they were only in the windows of the jewelers, the great attention would probably be out.

With the pop-up concept, Longines doesn’t remain alone. Other brands also show presence on Sylt: Ferrari here, IWC da, Louis Vuitton there. When customers are far from the cities in summer, the brands will travel after their customers. A concept that is not only on the North Sea island: Luxury brands have been drawn to exclusive holiday destinations for many years, such as the Hamptons, St. Tropez or Capri.

A win-win situation on Sylt. Since nothing can be purchased directly, unpleasant “I’ll come again later”. So this takes the stress from a journey of discovery through the collection.

Of course, an appearance on Sylt does not remain a sure -fire success. Even though Longines is already present on Wattweg for the fourth year, the brand had to fight hard. If it becomes too much for the islanders, they use hard bandages. Sylt was once considered a Mecca for weeks of car exhibitions – so that customers could get an idea of the models on vacation and with a lot of time. But the occupied parking spaces, the waving flags and the constant test drives at some point became too much for the Sylt – and then it was over.

Since then, strict rules have been in effect for such projects. For example, you have to be able to buy everything you can see in a pop-up store, even within a radius of 50 meters. This rule prevents many providers from becoming active on the island.

The scramble about the few places on the luxury mile does not care. They want to go on vacation, have it cozy and calm – and don’t worry.

This is precisely the attraction of the small shops and showrooms: If you fall in love with the Sylt model, you may make the purchase decision a little easier due to the proverbial holiday glasses. Punch.