Marc Jacobs Intl. (New York) is opening its first beauty store, on Bleecker Street in New York.
The designer’s first store dedicated to the cosmetics category will replace a former accessories store on a street in Greenwich Village dominated by Marc Jacobs retail.
The block also contains Marc Jacobs, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Bookmarc and Little Marc stores. “Bleecker Street is my laboratory,” the company’s president, Robert Duffy, told Women’s Wear Daily.
The nearly 500-square-foot space showcases the designer’s 121-stockkeeping-unit color cosmetics collection — which also incidentally debuted at Sephora’s 330 freestanding North American doors last week — as well as his fragrances with Coty Prestige.
The space was designed, as are most Marc Jacobs retail spaces, the New York firm by Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects. “I wanted [the store] to look like a jewel box, so the back is mirrored, ” Duffy said.
Duffy also revealed that the company is embarking on a major U.S. expansion plan in 2014, including a “very large” Fifth Avenue flagship for Marc by Marc Jacobs, followed by a large Collection store on Madison Avenue.
“We’ve never had a flagship store in New York City,” Duffy told WWD. “I’ve always opened smaller stores, like on Mercer Street and Bleecker Street.”
Duffy hinted that leases are also being negotiated in Washington, D.C., Southern California, Dallas and Miami.