Rockstar (by soon lee)

Books

Fashion outlet sells rare women's sneakers and literary classics with DIY covers

First published on 10 Mar 2010. Updated on 10 May 2010.

Marketing itself more as an outlet for rare women’s sneakers, rockstar is basically a slice of Haji Lane style in Cineleisure. But it’s nice to see that aside from overpriced ‘indie’ knickknacks and homeware, it carries a few books too.

These are slick reprinted editions favoured by image-conscious hipsters; they also have a series of literary classics (a Brontë here, a Dickens there) whose plain DIY covers triggered violent emotions about drawing pretentious doodles on books as an insidious marketing gimmick.

More worthy of your attention is their horror-themed selection of Penguin Pocket Classics short stories with matchy-matchy graphic covers, including HP Lovecraft’s infamous The Dunwich Horror and Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. Alexis Ong