More than a Purchase; Congruent Spaces
Written by Madesyn Hughes
A little bit before 6:00 pm on Wednesday, October 22, Vault members filed into one of the Grainger Hall classrooms to attend an anticipated speaker event. Walking in, Vault members saw Prosper Bambo and Preme sitting at a table, waiting to tell the Vault an inspirational and motivational story of their success and determination with Congruent Spaces. When the clock hit 6:00 pm, Vault members went silent, ready to hear their story, successes, challenges, failures, and more.
Congruent Spaces is described as, “A conceptual platform integrating ART & FASHION,” on their instagram, and that is exactly what Prosper and Preme described. They had met while Prosper was working at a store Preme was shopping at, a coincidental meeting leading to ultimate unplanned success in both of their careers. After getting to know each other, they came up with a plan for Congruent Spaces, a place where fashion could be different than what it currently is.
Prosper and Preme described that they created Congruent Spaces in October 2016 as a place for shopping to be an “experience” again, rather than just somewhere to simply purchase items. They wanted to make Congruent Spaces a place for community, a place where shoppers could come into not only shop, but look around and socialize with their friends. It was created by them as a place to fit into the Chicago landscape, tailoring their exhibits to Chicago locals of the community, as they are located on 1216 W Grand Ave, near the Fulton Market District.
To do this, Prosper and Preme had a small team, as it was an expensive project. They brought on Jeff, a student at the Art Institute of Chicago, who also spoke on his experience coming in as a screen printing intern, but now working with them on multiple projects in many different ways, especially construction. Congruent Spaces mainly focuses on collaborations with artists in their space to give them the space to showcase their art and work, as their business is ultimately driven on collaborations. They also described the different rooms they have created with simple materials, such as sand, spray paint, styrofoam, etc. These rooms included the Cloud Room in their OF THE WORDLY exhibit, their original GRID SPACE made with tape, and more. Within these rooms, they collaborate frequently with local Chicago artists, such as Joe Freshgoods’ Beauty Supply.
So, how did Congruent Spaces find its success? In targeting the customer, in not just what they want to buy, but what they want to experience. Prosper and Preme’s concept was to combine fashion and art for people to experience, changing the game for Chicago fashion shops. They created a place of community for Chicagoans that led them to come back and want to experience all their pop-ups. Their success wasn’t in making the most money, but making the most people feel good.
As Proper, Preme, and Jeff finished up answering questions from the audience, the Vault members clapped and headed on with their evening. What is for sure is that Vault members walked away with a new perspective on the fashion experience, thanks to Congruent Spaces.
The concept of Congruent Spaces was to have an empty space, with even white floors and white walls. Prosper and Preme were attempting to make a space they could sell anything in, while making the shopping an experience. They emphasized that sometimes people wouldn’t even buy anything from their exhibits, but simply come for the experience. However, they always had the ability to shop online. The exhibits were made to redesign the shopping experience for men and women. They touched on how, when you go shopping in this day and age, you walk into a store, get looked at as if you, “don’t belong,” and then pushed to buy something or leave the store. Prosper and Preme wanted to create something where fashion could be an experience again, where everyone belongs and can feel the art of it. They emphasized that “Fashion is art,” and therefore they wanted to display it that way.
One of the most unique markers of their success they shared was their ability to go to Miami, Florida, to have their own space in the Miami Design District. The district heard about their success in fashion experience in Chicago, leading them to reach out to them and invite them to hold a space in the district. They went from a one-month contract to about a year, spending the time holding pop-ups with luxury items, while being located between Gucci, Balenciaga, and Prada. They described this experience in Miami as one of the best, as they were able to expand and target a new audience of Miami shoppers. It was a major focus of theirs to make sure they targeted their customer, going from Chicago to Miami. Prosper and Preme described the target market as being very different and having to change what they featured and how they did.
