Why DEPT is Opening A Shop For Cannes Lions

After being recognised by Cannes Lions 2025 as one of the standout activations of last year, DEPT’s Secret Garden will return but this time round, it comes with a new addition; a limited-edition Souvenir Shop.

The shop will offers a capsule collection, operating more like a fashion pop-up, with a limited edition of items and the gifts to only be revealed once picked up. The experience is designed to be a chance to have important conversations, through a refined approach that leaves guest with a piece worth treasuring.

First born out of the pandemic, DEPT Apparel was created as a way of boosting the sense of culture and belonging, and has grown into a recognisable brand working with Meta, Red Bull and Lufthansa.

Marjan Straathof, global SVP of marketing at DEPT talks about how the idea for the Souvenir Shop came from the demand of clients asking about pieces and people’s anticipation for the next drop of DEPT Apparel.

Creative Salon: Why run a souvenir shop at Cannes? What will it aim to do?

Marjan Straathof: Cannes can feel like a lot. Everywhere you look there's more noise, more branding, more people trying to compete for attention. The Secret Garden was always our answer to that: a smaller, more intentional space for conversations that actually go somewhere. This year, we’re opening the Souvenir Shop with exactly the same thinking. We wanted to bring a piece of our world with us, something that felt genuinely like DEPT rather than something we'd built because we felt we should. If people walk away with something they actually want to keep, and a slightly different sense of who we are, that's the brief met.

Where did the idea come from?

DEPT Apparel has been part of our internal culture for years. It started during the pandemic as a slightly random idea that people inside DEPT got really into, and then it slowly took on a life of its own. Clients started asking about pieces. Teams wanted collaborations. People kept wanting to know what the next drop was. So bringing it to Cannes didn't feel like building an activation. It felt more like bringing a little piece of our world with us. Looking back, it feels like it was always going to end up here eventually.

How will it operate and look? What will it feature?

It runs more like a fashion pop-up than a merch table. Guests reserve a collection slot in advance, quantities are limited, and the item they receive is only revealed at pick-up. The collection includes raffia tote bags, leather travel tags and keychains, ping pong paddles, pétanque sets, mikado, coasters and postcards. Everything has been made with the same care we put into any DEPT Apparel drop. The surprise element is deliberate. It makes the moment of collection feel like something worth turning up for.

How will it work alongside last year's Secret Garden format?

The Secret Garden stays exactly as it was. An invite-only space just off the Croisette, built for senior-level conversations that go beyond the buzzwords and into what is actually changing. That format worked last year because it was small and honest, and we're not fixing what isn't broken. The Souvenir Shop sits alongside it as another expression of the same instinct: show up with intention, make things worth keeping. The two things reinforce each other rather than compete.

Who do you hope will shop in it?

The people already in the room. We keep the Secret Garden deliberately small and senior, so everyone there has chosen a different kind of Cannes experience. The Souvenir Shop is for them. We're not trying to reach everyone on the Croisette. We're trying to give the people already in our world something that reflects the care we put into everything else. That feels more honest than trying to maximise footfall.

What's the biggest challenge to activate something a bit different during Cannes Lions?

The temptation at Cannes is always to do more, add more, make it bigger. We've deliberately gone the other way, and that takes more confidence than it sounds. It means holding the line on keeping things small, resisting the pressure to scale up. But we saw last year what happens when you do that. The Secret Garden worked precisely because it wasn't trying to be everything to everyone. The Souvenir Shop follows the same logic. Saying no to things is still the hardest creative decision there is.

What's DEPT's biggest opportunity at this year's festival?

To be known as the engine behind the most interesting conversations on the Croisette. We're at a genuinely interesting moment. AI agents are starting to mediate how people discover things, make decisions, and buy, and most brands are still figuring out what that means for how they grow. Our programming tackles that directly, alongside questions about creativity, craft, and what leadership actually looks like when production becomes effectively infinite. We have senior leaders from OpenAI, Logitech, PepsiCo, eBay, Google and others in the room working through exactly that. Cannes is one of the few moments in the year when senior people across brands, agencies and platforms are all in the same place. The opportunity is to make that time count. And if people leave with a well-made raffia tote and a slightly clearer sense of where things are going, even better.