Visual Merchandising and Store Design | VMSD.com

Down Mexico Way: Luxury department store brings its U.S. brand of elegance to a flagship store in an upscale section of Mexico City.

By Steve Kaufman

Saks Fifth Avenue chooses its locations carefully. It has limited its luxury chain to about 50 sites in the fashion capitals of the U.S.: New York, Beverly Hills, San Francisco, Miami and the like. It has had only two locations outside the U.S., both in the Middle East.

So its newest store opening, in Mexico City, is a bit of a surprise. Mexico City is not commonly thought of as a fashion capital. However, Saks cautions not to underestimate this huge metro area of 22 million people. There are 2 million households with incomes of $100,000 or more. “Our research tells us there’s a sizable group of Mexicans hungry for luxury brands and designer apparel,” says David Pilnick, Saks’ senior vp, international business ventures.

Saks, in partnership with Mexican billionaire and Saks shareholder Carlos Slim Helú, chose to locate its first Mexico City store in Santa Fe, an emerging area in the western part of the sprawling city that’s home to condominiums, restaurants and the Mexican headquarters of such international companies as Hewlett-Packard, PepsiCo and 3M.

The space is an old 150,000-square-foot Sears Mexico in the Santa Fe Mall. Two of Mexico’s biggest department store chains, El Palacio de Hierro and El Puerto de Liverpool, anchor the mall but neither delivers the Saks-level luxury experience. And there’s no other U.S. luxury retailer in Mexico.

The designers decided not to build a Mexican version of Saks Fifth Avenue but rather to bring the retailer’s special brand of U.S. elegance to this flagship. “Wealthy Mexicans travel frequently to the U.S. and have come to know the Saks brand,” says Karen Oleson, creative principal at Hambrecht Oleson Design Associates (New York). “They want the experience, the brands and the service.”

It’s a bright and open three-level space with vast sightlines, elegant materials and a mostly soft and demure palette. There are a few nods to Mexican art and style around the store – some punches of color, some mosaic textures with Aztec references and the work of local artists throughout the space – but primarily this store is modeled after the newest Saks stores in the U.S.

As such, it includes luxury personal shopper lounges – an expansive Fifth Avenue Club for women on the second floor and a men’s club on three – connected through an exclusive elevator to VIP parking below.