AllSaints Spitalfields (London), the chic British apparel brand, has opened its first Canadian store and also a new unit in Beverly Hills, Calif.
The 6000-square-foot Toronto flagship is at Yorkdale Shopping Centre, one of the very few mall locations for the brand.
The 5500-square-foot Beverly Hills store on Beverly Drive is AllSaints’ third in Southern California. It also reflects the digital emphasis brought by its new ceo William Kim, the former senior vp of retail and digital commerce at Burberry who took over AllSaints in October 2012.
He told Women’s Wear Daily that the intent of the store is to create an “immersed multimedia experience,” with screens streaming digital content, touch screen point-of-sale technology, mobile tablets to control the retail environment and state-of-the-art acoustics. There is a stage for live performances.
“We can generate lots of content going forward utilizing the store somewhat as a production studio,” Kim told WWD. “I don’t think we are trying to be a gimmicky brand and doing an application here and there, or layer in technology that is not scalable. We want future technologies to be foolproof for 2015 and after.”
The stores represent a revival for AllSaints, which has come close to bankruptcy in recent years, and a move to international expansion.
“The stores in Beverly Hills and Toronto are the first dominos to fall of many to come,” Kim said. “It is not about the sheer number of doors this year. It is about testing concepts. Once we test the concepts, it will be about rolling them out and doing more consistent openings in 2014 and thereafter.”
According to WWD, AllSaints is in discussions to locate a pop-up at Malibu, Calif., and an increased presence in Bloomingdale’s stores, where it already is in 15 doors, by possibly heading to the fashion retailer’s locations in Chicago and Southern California.
It will soon open a store in Amsterdam and Kim said it will be “refining its statements” within Harrods and Selfridges by upgrading its fixtures package.
That is likely to be followed by expansion into Asia, where AllSaints has no stores, and in more U.S. locations. The WWD report mentioned New York, Las Vegas, San Diego and Honolulu.