Millennial pink interiors, a pool full of sprinkles, candy-coloured walls and a vintage-inspired café – whether for #OOTD or #ButFirstCoffee, all you need for the perfect #selfie waits here at the Museum of Ice Cream.
First launched as a pop-up in New York in 2016, the Museum of Ice Cream has since created iterations in Miami, Los Angeles and San Francisco, with the latter now home to its first permanent location.
Now, the Museum of Ice Cream is coming to Asia, with locations reported to open within the first two quarters of 2020.
Its first pop-up, located in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District just across from the Whitney Museum, sold out 30,000 tickets within just five days.
It’s not a wonder why. Designed with its smartphone-toting audience in mind, the Museum of Ice Cream ensures every exhibition and installation is worth the ‘gram.
In San Francisco, with its current experience called “Summer Camp,” there’s a room of rainbow walls, home to a unicorn sculpture. There’s also a room covered in dripping coloured paint – or variously flavoured ice cream – with a pair of swings, and a classic diner-café furnished with pink and red seating. The staff, too, are dressed in pink.
But perhaps the most iconic of its installations is the sprinkle pool: an all-pink swimming pool complete with slides and filled with colourful sprinkles.
The Museum of Ice Cream isn’t exactly a museum, though. Rather, as founders Maryellis Bunn and Manish Vora would put it, it’s an “experium” – a combination of “experience” and “museum”. The term has been trademarked by Figure8, parent company to Museum of Ice Cream, just launched by Bunn and Vora.
The founders’ original goal was to create a temporary series of installations to get people to connect with one another as well as with architecture. Intentionally photogenic, with displays and installations designed not only to be engaged with but also to be photographed with, the Museum of Ice Cream became a hit, leading to more pop-ups and now, finally, permanent sites in the works.
The Museum has also branched out with actual ice cream, as well as a children’s clothing line together with retail company Target, and a makeup collection with Sephora.
Adding to its location in San Francisco, the Museum of Ice Cream is now gearing up to open its second permanent site back in New York. Opening in Soho this fall, the New York flagship will cover 25,000sqft of space across three floors, and will feature its largest sprinkle pool yet, complete with a three-storey slide. Among its 13 new installations are a floating table of desserts, a “Queen Bee hive”, and a “Hall of Giant Scoops.”
We can’t wait to see what they’re concocting for this part of the world.
Photography courtesy of Museum of Ice Cream
See more: Ganni's UK Flagship is a Colourful Haven Inspired by the Home of its Founders
