The Pop Up Flea

If you're hip to the #menswear scene or have been paying attention to your social media channels, then you may've heard that the Pop Up Flea is coming up this weekend—and crossing the pond to London. If you're in the area, stop by to check out (and pick up) some handsome gear and hard-to-find vintage goods from an impressive lineup of vendors. We caught up with co-founder Michael Williams of A Continuous Lean as he stepped off the plane at Heathrow to talk about the Flea's evolution. And if you can't make it, we asked for a few of his favorites you can score online right now.

"It started on a whim, in a bar in New York and now we're in London tinkering with the final details for the first PUFLDN. In the beginning, my partner Randy Goldberg and I were talking about how we would like to open a store but in a non-traditional way—to open for one weekend at a time. We'd invite our designer friends and see if we can get some people to show up and shop. It turned out to be far more successful than we imagined. I think people just wanted to come together and hang out. It's nice to get a roomful of likeminded, smart and interesting people together these days. It turned out to be much more about "community" than we expected, which is a really pleasant surprise.

Before London, we were dead set on just doing one a year. It was all we thought we could mentally and physically manage, because we really do it all ourselves and we're interested in keeping it about the brands we like and well-made things. But when this London opportunity came up, we jumped at it. More than any place else, London seems to be on the same page as New York (and vice versa). It'll be fun to see how Londoners react to the concept. And at the end of the day, it's cool to be in one of the world's greatest cities with so many friends. Now we're thinking about the places we might go with PUF next year ..."