News comes this morning that Boston is finally getting its long-awaited Uniqlo stores. Rumors have been bubbling for a while, and the company had stated that the Boston area was one of their expansion targets for 2014.
But the arrival will play out a bit differently than I would have expected. A pop-up location will open in Quincy Market in July and remain open through September. Meanwhile, permanent stores will open in the malls in Natick and Chestnut Hill at the end of August. (Info about the Chestnut Hill location leaked several months back.)
Then in September a third store will open in the Northshore Mall, followed by one at Legacy Place in Dedham in October. Boston proper won't get stores until a year from now, when two will open: one on Newbury Street and one in Quincy Market.
The suburbs-first approach is surprising, but I imagine it's mainly due to the availability of suitable spaces and the time involved in getting them ready. (The future location on Newbury, roughly across the street from Newbury Comics, used to be a parking garage.)
Regardless, I welcome the imminent opportunity to shop at Uniqlo without having to buy online or travel to New York. Their inexpensive clothing is well above that of other "fast fashion" retailers in terms of quality, and its colorful styles are still conservative enough that adults can wear them without embarrassment.
Showing posts with label Retailing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Retailing. Show all posts
07 May 2014
19 July 2012
What's Not in Store
Boston-area residents in need of cheap furniture are going to have to continue driving to Stoughton: it was announced today that the long-promised, quasi-mythical (can a retail store be considered vaporware?) Somerville IKEA will not be happening, according to the Boston Globe.
It's been well over a decade since IKEA purchased property between the Assembly Square shopping center and the Mystic River. If I remember correctly, the original proposal had the store opening in 2001. At the time I lived within walking distance and was quite excited at the prospect, but after years of delays I began to wonder if the store would ever be built.
After my first experience visiting an IKEA in Virginia in 1991, I desperately wanted to earn enough money to have my own apartment and furnish it entirely from there. But the longer we waited for the Somerville store, the less its existence came to matter to me. IKEA became less of a novelty, and at the same time I grew up and my tastes changed.
If I do want or need something from IKEA, the Stoughton store is about a 30-minute drive from our house. It's still a useful store for inexpensive household items, and I've had this gigantic aerial photo of the Flatiron Building in New York bookmarked for a couple of years now. (It's almost five feet high by six and a half feet wide.)
When the adjacent mixed-use Assembly Row project started construction earlier this year, along with the future Orange Line stop, and no mention was made of the IKEA project, I suspected the worst. According to the story, IKEA will look to sell the property, and with the other activity already underway on the adjacent sites, I imagine it won't be too difficult.
It's been well over a decade since IKEA purchased property between the Assembly Square shopping center and the Mystic River. If I remember correctly, the original proposal had the store opening in 2001. At the time I lived within walking distance and was quite excited at the prospect, but after years of delays I began to wonder if the store would ever be built.
After my first experience visiting an IKEA in Virginia in 1991, I desperately wanted to earn enough money to have my own apartment and furnish it entirely from there. But the longer we waited for the Somerville store, the less its existence came to matter to me. IKEA became less of a novelty, and at the same time I grew up and my tastes changed.
If I do want or need something from IKEA, the Stoughton store is about a 30-minute drive from our house. It's still a useful store for inexpensive household items, and I've had this gigantic aerial photo of the Flatiron Building in New York bookmarked for a couple of years now. (It's almost five feet high by six and a half feet wide.)
When the adjacent mixed-use Assembly Row project started construction earlier this year, along with the future Orange Line stop, and no mention was made of the IKEA project, I suspected the worst. According to the story, IKEA will look to sell the property, and with the other activity already underway on the adjacent sites, I imagine it won't be too difficult.
20 June 2012
Looking Forward
I'm always interested in what's going on in the retail business, and I'm always interested in what's going on with JCPenney. I don't buy a lot of clothing there, but they fill a need for certain things, and they have been making an effort to improve their offerings.
The GQ Eye blog posted an interview with Nick Wooster, a guru to style bloggers worldwide and veteran of high-end stores like Barneys and Neiman Marcus, who recently signed on with Penney as vice president of "brand, design, and trend." That bit of marketing-speak means he's now the guy in charge of men's design, and he offers a preview of some of the company's efforts that will be reaching stores starting this fall.
(Side note: since JCPenney decided to drop its Ralph Lauren-prodced American Living line, I'm wondering if another clothing retailer would be interested in picking it up, like how Martha Stewart went from Kmart to Macy's. I don't know if that's even possible under the terms of the agreement, but it's certainly an interesting thought.)
The GQ Eye blog posted an interview with Nick Wooster, a guru to style bloggers worldwide and veteran of high-end stores like Barneys and Neiman Marcus, who recently signed on with Penney as vice president of "brand, design, and trend." That bit of marketing-speak means he's now the guy in charge of men's design, and he offers a preview of some of the company's efforts that will be reaching stores starting this fall.
(Side note: since JCPenney decided to drop its Ralph Lauren-prodced American Living line, I'm wondering if another clothing retailer would be interested in picking it up, like how Martha Stewart went from Kmart to Macy's. I don't know if that's even possible under the terms of the agreement, but it's certainly an interesting thought.)
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