Just prior to their product launch, I wrote a large post on the selling of consumer awareness via an unusual retail store concept called the FLOWmarket.

above: God in a can? And for only $19.97? That's a deal.

Here we are, over 2 years later and it's time for an update. FLOWmarket is a temporary or pop-up store that travels around the world, selling what they term" new generation luxury".

Previous stores:
Zurich, may 2005
New York, june 2006
Taipei, jan-march 2007
Shanghai, july-sep 2007
Singapore, jan 2008
Seoul, may 2008
Copenhagen, 2005 - 2009

At current there are no brick and mortar stores, but their collection of products can be purchased online. However, the items available are different than when I first wrote about them.

Whereas the items in their pop-up stores are in diverse packaging, like those shown above, they now sell 73 different items online, but each is a single small can costing $19.97 USD.

Here are a few examples:

In their own words:

FLOWmarket is a store that materializes our immaterial needs. FLOWmarket is about next generation luxury. FLOWmarket is designed from the notion that change happens when we as individuals change our mindset. FLOWmarket has due to its simple and universal form been able to succesfully cross cultural boundries between Europe, US and Asia. FLOWmarket is often asked by journalists if they should label it as design, as art, as business or as activism. FLOWmarket have had temporary stores open in Copenhagen, Zurich, New York, Taipei, Shanghai, Singapore and Seoul. FLOWmarket opened its first store in 2004. FLOWmarket is created and designed by Mads Hagstrøm.

Shop FLOWmarket here.
Product photography by Niclas Jessen.

To read about their original project and philosophy, the FLOWinstitute and more, go here.

A shop selling consumer awareness
FLOWmarket™ is a shop designed to inspire consumers to think, live and consume more holistic.

Present imbalances from the 3 dimensions of the FLOW model™ have been addressed and transformed into physical products in the shape of aesthetically designed (empty) packings with humorous and thought awakening labels that the visiting consumers can buy at prices ranging from 5-20 dollars.

FLOWmarket™ ”basic collection” offers 40 different scarcity goods in 3 product categories:

The product category ”Individual flow” offers e.g: ”stress killers”, ”ups and downs”, ”addiction liberators”, ”detox”, ”obesity dissolvers”, ”a lack of exercise killers” and ”symptom removers”.

The product category ”Collective flow” offers e.g: ”off liners”, ”commercial free-space”, ”presence”, ”tolerance”, ”exploitation free produce” and ”consumption moderators”.

The product category ”Environmental flow” offers e.g: ”organic food”, ”clean tap water”, ”pollution dissolvers”, ”factory farming antibiotics”, ”renewable energy ” and ”100% GMO”.

In relation to these new scarcity goods the FLOWmarket™ is addressing imbalances from each of the 3 product categories as well as elite companies that have succeeded in gaining a leading position in the rapidly emerging “holistic market” through their unique approach to sustainable innovation.

The first FLOW market™ opened in 2004 and has due to it’s commercial success been granted a permanent status at the Danish Design Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. The goal is to make FLOWmarket™ a global franchise success.

Of appraisals FLOW market™ has received a danish design award in 2004 along with a Danish broadsheet and a Swedish TV-program naming it the danish design event of 2004. In 2006 FLOW market™ won the ICFF editors award in New York.

FLOW

A brand and template that meets the rising demand for sustainable innovation
Throughout the 20th century the pursuit for technological and economic progress has given the industrialized world great new possibilities but has also resulted in a wide range of imbalances and challenges on 3 levels:

The individual - man’s relation to oneself:
(rising stress- depression- and obesity curves, addictions, eating disorders, symptom treatments etc.)

The collective - man’s relation to society:
(over-consumption, increasing fear, xenophobia, global inequality, cultural rectification, conflicts over resources etc.)

The environmental - man’s relation to nature:
(pollution, agricultural toxics, factory farming, decreasing biodiversity, non renewable energy consumption etc.)

Challenges that individually and together bear witness to an unhealthy development of our societies.

As a response a need for more sustainable growth is rising to the top of the agenda of individuals, business and nations.

Thus a new consumer market based on values is expanding rapidly, where the materialistically rich consumer increasingly judges products and sevices on their immaterial values and on level of sustainability.

Businesses, whose role is changing from being production units to becoming ”corporate citizens” know this.
They themselves point towards social responsibility and innovation as the most important competitive parameters of tomorrow, but they lack the skills to combine the to notions.

FLOW™ - a template and brand
In order to meet the rising demand for sustainable growth and innovation we will have to be able to navigate within
the term sustainablility. For this purpose we have created the FLOWmodel™, a design model that reflects our three dimensional view on creating sustainable growth:

Individual flow:
Balanced physical, mental and spiritual growth.

Collective flow:
Balanced interpersonel, cultural, economic, social and technological growth.

Environmental flow:
Balanced environmental growth.

A holistic mindset that is the essential basis of all our future commercial and non-commercial activities. Thus FLOW™ is the brand name for our products and services that in each of their own way catalyze sustainable growth.

A FLOW™ product is caracterised by providing beneficial solutions on both the individual, the collective and the environmental level.

A wide range of products created from theFLOWmodel™ are in progress, and will be serving consumer markets in the near future. The first product launch will be FLOWbottle™ in august 2007.