Hip Hop on the Avenue

The new Sean John store opened on New York’s Fifth Avenue and 41st Street, across the street from the lions that guard the New York Public Library.

Sean John founder and president Sean Combs said the 3500-square-foot store “feels like a home area, rather than just a place to shop,” designed to resemble a living room. The surfaces are cream-colored travertine marble, with ebonized walls, brushed nickel rails and 12-foot ceilings.

“The store has a sense of glamour and also a sense of style that will rival most of the other big-name stores on Fifth Avenue,” Combs told The New York Times. “I think we were able to truly capture my dreams.”

Combs said those dreams included shopping on Fifth Avenue when he was younger and emerging from his Harlem roots as a music star. “To be honest, Fifth Avenue was where I shopped at, where I could find the big designers I admire, whose footsteps I try to follow,” he said, referring to Fifth Avenue luxury emporiums like Hugo Boss and Bergdorf Goodman Men’s. “I wanted to play where the big boys were playing.”

Charles Soriano, Sean John vp for retail, said the store is a retail prototype, the first in a planned expansion that is to include shops in Beverly Hills, Houston, Detroit and, eventually, Europe.

The store’s square footage is smaller than (by a fifth to a third the size of) competing uptown retailers. The stretch of Fifth Avenue is 10 blocks below the part of the city where the fashion retailing begins (Saks Fifth Avenue is on Fifth Avenue at 51st Street), and cheaper, too — roughly 20 percent of the rent for a location in the 50s, which can be as high as $1000 a square foot.

The Times wondered whether it might all be a bit rich for Combs’ fan base that is used to buying his tracksuits at Macy’s. “I don’t think it’s intimidating to people at all,” he answered. “My customers trust me to enlighten them. They know I’m very versatile, that I go from Harlem to the Hamptons.”