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Sarah Andelman, co-founder and creative director of the Parisian concept store, Colette, closed the retail institution for good but never turned her back on her pursuit to create more room for play. With new projects such as Just an Idea and the Art Basel Shop, she continues to spread joy by doing what she does best &mdash; remixing art, fashion, and culture with humor and authenticity.&nbsp;
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We live in the post-internet age and peak influencer era, a time when trends are consumed and disposed of as fast as they are manufactured. But even if fashion changes at lightning speed, Sarah Andelman reminds us that shopping should be less about conspicuous consumption and more about having fun and playing with possibilities.&nbsp;
 I catch up with Sarah after the bustle of the Olympics. She says, &ldquo;The Paris Olympics was fantastic! Paris was booming with such great energy! She then goes on with her list of commitments, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m busy with Art Basel Shop, my series of Just an Idea Books, a Christmas project at Landmark in Hong Kong, and tons of other things.&rdquo;
 I ask, &ldquo;What prompted you to launch Just an Idea? How did you realize it was time to start something new?&rdquo; Surprisingly, it didn&rsquo;t take long for Sarah to manifest new opportunities. She jumped right back in after parting ways with her mom, Colette Roussaux, in their joint venture. She says, &ldquo;Immediately after we closed Colette in 2017, I started Just an Idea. It&rsquo;s a continuity from what I used to do with Colette &mdash; curating and helping brands to develop collaborations and inputs on retail projects.&rdquo;&nbsp;

Just a Space

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When Colette opened in 1997 at Rue Saint-Honor&eacute;, it reinvented a new currency for shopping. Stores were no longer just brick-and-mortar properties &mdash; they became cultural hubs. It trailblazed the notion of a &ldquo;concept store&rdquo; where experiences were curated to connect with different niches. As Kanye West put it in the documentary Colette Mon Amour &mdash; Colette was the internet before the internet. It&rsquo;s an oasis for coolhunters, the type who would cop Japanese avant-garde pieces from Comme des Gar&ccedil;ons or sacai and pair them with one-off Kith x Puma x Ronnie Fieg sneakers. It&rsquo;s a place that defied dress codes and guest lists, where high fashion mainstays such as Carine Roitfeld and Karl Lagerfeld effortlessly mingled with subculture icons like Supreme&rsquo;s James Jebbia and graffiti artist Futura. It was a mandatory stop in Paris, and its range of temptations spanned from dropping a dime for chewing gum to spending a fortune on an exclusive Colette Vespa Primavera scooter.
 It&rsquo;s in the same spirit of eclectism that Sarah founded Just an Idea, a consulting agency and publishing company that embodies Colette&rsquo;s unique eye for collaboration. Its imprint produces limited edition books and objects by her favorite artists, including works by novelist Douglas Coupland, sneaker designer Sean Wotherspoon, and architect Harry Nuriev. At heart, Sarah is a voracious reader whose curiosity led her to the industry of fashion, and when asked about shifting her focus back to art, she says, &ldquo;Fashion who?! Ah! It&rsquo;s true. I&rsquo;m more interested in cultural projects, which can also be related to fashion.&rdquo; But for now, instead of making things from scratch, she would rather collaborate with designers and stick to selling goods online or through a pop-up model.
 The concept of Just an Idea culminated early this year with Mise En Page, Sarah&rsquo;s pop-up exhibition that transformed the department store, Le Bon March&eacute;, into a sprawling literary haven showcasing in-house and international titles from bookshops around the world like Tokyo&rsquo;s Cow Books and New York&rsquo;s The Strand. Together with artist and frequent collaborator Jean Jullien, she made reading a coveted pursuit. Jullien&rsquo;s large-scale installation of his Paper People provided the perfect backdrop for a motley crew of merchandise, covering every form of treat and trinket from Byredo&rsquo;s Biblioth&egrave;que scent to Snoopy sculptures.&nbsp;

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Mise En Page at Le Bon Marché

During our chat, she mentions her all-time favorite reads, &ldquo;Peanuts and some Andy Warhol books.&rdquo; Sarah&rsquo;s taste is always embedded in her selections, and it&rsquo;s difficult to copy because it&rsquo;s rooted in her character of being serious about not taking things seriously. She affirms, &ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s essential to not take ourselves too seriously and to keep [our] foot on earth.&rdquo; Her choice of art collaborators attests to this trait. She usually goes for those with a knack for the bold and comic such as Takashi Murakami, Darcel Disappoints, James Jarvis, and of course, Jean Jullien. &ldquo;I love their humor and way of seeing life!&rdquo;&nbsp;
 Sarah&rsquo;s way of seeing things is also a reflection of her extensive travels. Lately, work often takes her to Hong Kong. It&rsquo;s where the first Art Basel Shop was based and Wrap It Up! A Christmas Atelier at Landmark is installed. The latter celebrates the art of holiday gifting by curating onstage and offstage experiences featuring collaborations with artists FriendsWithYou, Kasing Lung, Mr.A, Nina Chanel Abney, and Ribbonesia.
 These projects show how Sarah keeps the audience captive for the next big thing. But flexing the &ldquo;next big thing&rdquo; isn&rsquo;t her concern. &ldquo;I love designers like Harry Nuriev who created his own design language. I love young brands like Ex-Libris, focused only on one kind of product&hellip; I always think less is more.&rdquo;
 What keeps her vision differentiated is while other retailers venerate the next drop with cooler-than-thou marketing, she keeps her messaging warm and simple. It&rsquo;s like hearing from a long-cherished friend.&nbsp;
 On most occasions, a brand&rsquo;s authenticity gets lost in translation because trends proliferate so fast &mdash; you can&rsquo;t tell who&rsquo;s copying who anymore, which leads to the question, &ldquo;How does Sarah stay true to her taste while keeping up with the pulse of the times?&rdquo; She says, &ldquo;I always stay authentic to what I truly love, to what I sincerely believe in, and to what I find relevant because I haven&rsquo;t seen it before.&rdquo; To illustrate, she loves visiting the MSCHF atelier in Brooklyn. &ldquo;All their ideas are so crazy! But also so meaningful!&rdquo; she says.&nbsp;

Although enthusiasm alone can&rsquo;t shield anyone from the risks of managing a business in a cutthroat ecosystem, it helps people sustain their creativity. Sarah taps into the best of the online and offline world by maintaining an e-commerce platform and building immersive experiences that can only be described as one for the books. She doesn&rsquo;t let social media dictate her agenda, but she uses digital connectivity to amplify products that already speak for themselves. &ldquo;Social media, particularly Instagram, has been a game-changer for Colette. It became so easy and spontaneous to share new products we would receive every day and to announce some events, etc. It&rsquo;s an endless source of information for me, to find new designers, artists, and creative talents. I think the future of any retail store [should] embrace the digital dimension as an extension of awareness.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 From Colette to Just an Idea, Sarah&rsquo;s innovative ways have withstood the test of time. Fortunately, not just her enterprises have endured; her partnerships and friendships have also flourished. Her secret? &ldquo;Sincerity and curiosity.&rdquo; Last June, Sarah curated Just Phriends for Pharrell Williams&rsquo; auction house JOOPITER. She gathered bespoke artworks and cultural artifacts from friends as well as emerging artists and creative visionaries like Daniel Arsham and Kaws. The affair was a glorious mish-mash of sensibilities. One minute you&rsquo;re admiring George Condo&rsquo;s Portrait of an English Lady, and the next minute, you&rsquo;re giggling with Gabriela Noelle&rsquo;s Imaginary Phriends. The assembly shouldn&rsquo;t make sense yet everything worked.&nbsp;

Gabriela Noelle’s Imaginary Phriends

Indeed, Sarah is a master of curation, but her version of it isn&rsquo;t synonymous with perfection. &ldquo;My process is quite chaotic,&rdquo; she admits. In her defense, it has more to do with intention and catching that indescribable feeling of magic when you come across something you love. &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t explain. I really just follow my instincts. My heart is booming when I see something new and exciting.&rdquo; Just the same, being in her space and having access to her labor of love is like meeting your crush &mdash; it&rsquo;s a moment that leaves you in a state of all smiles, giddy with heart eyes.

I really just follow my instincts. My heart is booming when I see something new and exciting.

After Colette, Sarah Andelman Continues To Curate Spaces and Make Room for Play

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