Hi-Yo, Silver

Georg Jensen (Copenhagen), the renowned Danish silversmith, has announced a new, smaller store format as part of the 100-year-old company’s effort to re-brand itself and expand in the U.S. with its “A New Brand, A New Look” campaign.

The first of the new 1100-2500-square-foot stores, with a tighter focus on goods manufactured by Jensen, are to open later this year in New York’s SoHo and in Greenwich, Conn. Moves from existing stores to smaller spaces nearby are planned for Short Hills, N.J., and the flagship store on Madison Avenue.

The SoHo location is a former clothing store on Wooster Street with 800 square feet on the ground floor and another 800 on the second floor, which Jensen will use as offices. The Greenwich site, a former video store, is across the street from Saks Fifth Avenue and within a block or two of Tiffany’s, Baccarat and other competitive high-end shops.

Andrew Tuller, architect for the Greenwich and SoHo projects, said the look of the stores would be “essentially black and white.” With walls of black slate tiles, display cases of white lacquer and black leather, floors of beige limestone and halogen lighting, the design is intended “to make the merchandise shine,” he said.

“What we are doing,” said Lennart Palm, president of Georg Jensen USA (New York), “is in line with our international strategy, where we will refocus our product line on jewelry, silver tableware and watches.” The Jensen stores are dropping china, glass and giftware made by others. “We are no longer carrying anything but our own products,” Mr. Palm said, “and we are taking on a more contemporary theme.”

The creation of a signature design for all Jensen stores, based on a prototype in Denmark, will lead to more outlets and a consistent look, Jensen says. The elimination of merchandise other than its own will require less store space.

Palm estimates that the two new sites will be completed by June or July, at a combined cost around $1 million. Construction at the Short Hills Mall, scheduled to start within two weeks for an April opening, involves moving to an 1100-square-foot space down the corridor from the current larger store, and the Madison Avenue shop will move in the fall to a smaller space next door.

“We may find a new location on Michigan Avenue for the Chicago store,” Mr. Palm said. “The present location in the Drake Hotel is 3000 square feet, too big for us.”

In addition to a store that will be renovated in the Halekulani hotel in Honolulu, he said, “we are negotiating with the Ala Moana outdoor mall in Honolulu for a second store that we will build, and we have tentatively signed a lease for the Westchester mall in White Plains, where we cannot get access to space until 2005.” The company is also prospecting for sites in Las Vegas, Florida and in California at Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, and the Costa Mesa mall in Orange County.

The company, which has more than 100 stores in 13 countries, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, an event marked in its home city, Copenhagen, with a museum exhibition and the dedication of a new ballet, among other things.

Georg Jensen came to America in 1924, opening in a large two-story space on Fifth Avenue that operated as a sort of department store of expensive household goods made in Scandinavia. “The store was owned by somebody else who could sell anything,” said Amy Chukerman, vp, retail operations at Jensen USA. “That's how it seemed as if Jensen's was selling furniture and Royal Copenhagen china and Orrefors crystal.”

By the 1970s, Scandinavian design was hardly a novelty, and Fifth Avenue was home to airlines and operations other than retailing, so Jensen moved to 2900 square feet on Madison Avenue between 61st and 62nd Streets.