So here are those pics from the United Nude store in Amsterdam, which turned out to be as good as the build-up that was provided. And it also happened to be busy - quite an achievement in view of the esoteric nature of the product and the highish ticket prices.

A beautiful store

His dark materials

I'll put a few pictures of a store called United Nude, in Amsterdam, up on the site later this week - when I've been there. But meantime, been corresponding with the man who designed it - Rem Koolhaus, the person who designed the Prada store in New York and numerous other high-profile spaces.

This is what he calls a "dark store" - a place where everything is left unlit, apart from the stock. Koolhaus comments: "It's just one of a number of options that you have. Another good thing about the dark-shop concept is that it has a really high impact. You enter a world. It's the same reason that cinemas are dark."

He adds: "Without answering the question of what architecture is, I would just like to say that this shop is not really even interior design. to me, it's an installation or a machine. A very efficient machine."

Should make for an interesting visit I reckon. More Thursday.

Popping over to Prada

Stand at the Place Beauvau end of the very posh Avenue Martigny in the poshest part of posh Paris and you'll be hard pushed not to catch sight of Prada's "Temporary Space." Externally, this looks like a bridge - hardly an accident as the Italian architect responsible for the design took much of his inspiration from the nearby Mirabeau Bridge, a green-painted cast iron 19th century structure.

It is certainly impressive and, unlike many luxury stores, has a very open-door policy when it comes to welcoming shoppers, irrespective of the width of their wallets.

The point about this shop however is that while many are calling it a "pop-up" (it will only be in business until the end of March), it has a feeling of permanence, both in terms of store design and the quality of the fixturing, that rather gives the lie to this.

Which calls into question the notion of what we mean by a pop-up. Is it something quick and dirty, or can a super-luxe environment also qualify? Have a look and make your own mind up and decide whether the inherent snobbery implicit in the use of the word "temporary", rather than pop-up, is merited. And if you're in Paris, go have a look. You probably won't be able to afford much, but on the other hand, it is a trompe l'oeil spectacle.

Not a Colette store

Went to Brick Lane yesterday, supposedly on the promise of a Colette pop-up shop. For those not in the loop, Colette's a fashion store in Paris famous for being famous - for some of its clothes and for a broad range of ephemera. It also has a bar that serves just mineral water - or at least it used to have.

Back in London however, arriving at the address marked out as the Colette pop-up, it turns out to be a space in the former Truman brewery which has been comandeered and turned into the "Cube Store". Step inside, and this considerable space is home to series of red geometric installations, some of which contain objects "selected" by Colette, as the blurb says. So this is it, the fashion store as curator and as adjunct to a Nissan car launch, which is what this space is really about.

It's only around until Christmas, so go visit, but don't expect a Colette pop-up store. This is a spratt to catch a mackerel, or some such.

A poor show

I like bookshops and, in general, I like pop-up shops. The logic would follow that a pop-up bookshop should be a place to cut a path towards. Was on the King's Road early this morning therefore, eager to look at the Phaidon pop-up that's just opened and will probably trade until after Christmas.

A yellow sign in the window informed passersby that there was "20% off all books". Maybe so, but aren't there offers of this kind in almost every bookshop in the land? And bearing in mind that this is a pop-up store, you might feel entitled to rather more.

But what really grated was the store itself. Everybody knows that pop-ups have a limited lifespan, but there is no excuse for adopting a lowest common denominator position. This is, quick simply, the dullest shop on the King's Road and that is saying a lot. A white box, with white fixturing. Phaidon books are pretty, but not pretty enough to offset this.

And as if this were not enough, there's a concerted PR campaign to get it written about.

Well...at least that bit's worked...

Spreading across the West End

The temptation to write something about loving or hating ran deep this afternoon. I was at the Piccadilly end of Regent Street in seach of the Marmite pop-up store and in truth, I loved it. Two floors of nostalgia in celebration of a yeast-based spread wouldn't be the first thing that you might think of when deciding how to use an empty store unit.

And yet here it is, a store devoted to the breakfast and teatime condiment, complete with a pyramid of Marmite jars and a turntable on which jars of the black stuff rotate endlessly. Its product, ranging from toaters and tea towels, to branded bread bins and, of course, Marmite jars, is on the ground floor, while upstairs, there's a 50s-style tearoom where you can enjoy Marmite fingers with a cup of tea.

Only open till Christmas, this store, at 82 Regent Street, is worth a visit if only to admire the multi-coloured Union Jack at the back of the ground floor (with Marmite at its centre, natch), created by Royal College of Art graduates.

Go now

Proletarian small beer

This is not any kind of visit to a new store, but a visit to a bar. I was in Poland a couple of nights ago in a city called Posnan. Nice old centre, lots of brand new shopping centres - you know the sort of thing - and a Polish Communist Party nostalgia haven called "Bar Proletaryat." Pickled herrings and gherkins, brown beer and Marx - it's all there. The place is filled with Soviet era flotsam and jetsam and absolutely demands a visit when you're in town.

And surely the ultimate irony is that this is an enterprise celebrating control by the people which is only available to those who can afford it and which is, presumably, run by a well-to-do capitalist somewhere.

In true communist style, they stopped me taking a pic, so I'm posting an image of a decent-enough looking building in the centre of the city.