Celebrating 10 Years of Machine-A

There are shops where you pick up your weekly essentials and then there are sartorial destinations that double as community hubs and cultural landmarks. The latter is how we’d describe cult-favourite luxury concept store MACHINE-A, which celebrates its tenth birthday this year. Founded in 2013 by Stavros Karelis, the iconic Soho shop is more than a boutique stocking the likes of Raf Simons and Maison Margiela; it’s a certified stomping ground for the tastemakers of tomorrow.

When Karelis opened the doors a decade ago MACHINE-A quickly garnered a following among London’s cool kids with its bold curation of streetwear, luxury, and emerging and established brands. Tapping into the archive market, last year Karelis introduced MACHINE-B a collaboration with legendary vintage fashion retailer Byronesque showcasing archival designs. A trailblazer with its genderless approach, as the shop’s creative and buying director, Karelis’ eclectic curation stood out among the more traditional London shopping destinations. A longtime friend and collaborator of SHOWstudio, it was Nick Knight tasked with bringing the Soho shop to the world with a boundary-breaking e-commerce website.

Still, it’s MACHINE-A’s devotion to highlighting emerging talents that truly sets it apart from its contemporaries. While a stockist for today’s established luxury labels like Rick Owens and Commerce des Garçons, MACHINE-A has long been one of London's only destinations stocking the work of recent graduates like Olivia Rubens, and burgeoning brands. Positioning the work of Goomheo and Paolo Carzana among design titans like Martine Rose and Jean Paul Gaultier propels today's young designers into the spotlight. With this in mind MACHINE-A partnered with 5 VOID graduates, including Bianca Saunders, Camilla Damkjaer, Eftychia Arnar Mar Jonsson and T/SEHNE in 2018.

While it's celebrating ten years in the biz, MACHINE-A is showing no signs of slowing down. On the contrary, expansion is the name of the game moving forward. Last year, MACHINE-A opened it's first international outpost in Shanghai, introducing Karelis' expert curation and commerce vision to an Asian market. We can't wait to see what the next ten years has in store as MACHINE-A continues to challenge the way we shop.

Karelis says: 'In those 10 years, incredible teams were involved. I have tried my best, with the most dedication, passion, commitment, hard work, belief and deep respect for all our supporters and community, to create a world that champions emerging talent, creativity, and true design and is unafraid to experiment and push the boundaries in ways that very few had done before. MACHINE-A started in a very small space in the heart of Soho, London, and soon became a hub that many would want to be part of because we share the same values and ideals of how fashion should be. These like-minded people, brave and unafraid designers, creatives and customers all made what MACHINE-A is today, and because of all of them, we are here to celebrate.

I cannot thank each one of the people enough that all these years became such an integral part of our identity, of our DNA, shaping MACHINE-A, fuelling it and propelling it to an international business with our second store in Shanghai and a London expansion soon to be launched in the location we all met for the first time. Through its curation and storytelling, this party also marks our promise and commitment of the next years to come to push for the same values that created us in even greater and most effective ways possible in London and globally.'