Comfort in Manhattan

Naturalizer, a retail division of Brown Shoe (St. Louis), opened a 3100-square-foot flagship store on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan on Thursday.

The store's two-story atrium allows the brand to showcase its new attitude and image. Naturalizer plans to use this location to preview and test new styles before they appear in any of its other stores across the U.S.

“We plan to use this store as a laboratory to test new, fashion-forward shoe designs to give us early reads on styles, which will become important to our department store retail partners,” says Byron Norfleet, Naturalizer division president.

Naturalizer, a 75-year-old brand, lost market share prior to the late 1990s, but emerged after a repositiong effort that included a redesign of its product and an advertising makeover.

“Since August 1999, when we launched the reimaging campaign, the Naturalizer brand has increased its wholesale distribution by more than 50 percent, upped its market share by 84 percent in the department store channel, and added more than 600 new independent store customers. Plus, since early the 1990s, the brand has shaved 20 years off the average age of its customer,” says Norfleet.

Following three years of market share gains, and the success of its first New York store on Columbus Avenue that opened in May 2000, Naturalizer decided to expand its presence is New York City. The brand opened its first store 50 years ago on Hillside Avenue.

Naturalizer Retail operates over 400 stores in the U.S. and Canada. It is one of the few shoe brands that come in a large selection of widths and sizes, from 6 narrow to 11 double-wide. Brown Shoe operates the 920-store Famous Footwear and Naturalizer chains of footwear retail stores. It also owns other brands including LifeStride, Connie, Buster Brown, and markets licensed brands including Dr. Scholl's and Carlos by Carlos Santana for adults, Barbie, Star Wars, Spider-Man and Bob-the-Builder character footwear for children.