The Shophound

Fifth Avenue Switches:Little abercrombie Gets Switched To A Hollister

Here's another excuse to run this very popular photo again.
Expect to see these guys hanging out on Fifth Avenue sometime next year. Instead of turning the former Hickey Freeman shop at 668 Fifth between 52^nd and 53^rd Streets into an abercrombie kids store, another Hollister for the uptown tourists will be opened in its place. Considering the strong response to the SoHo "Epic" flagship, this isn't too much of a surprise. We will be curious to see how the steel and glass building will be transformed into the kind of dark stage set they so love at Hollister. Will they recreate another California pier in the two-level 15,500 square foot space, or will it become a more humble surf shack like most of the other Hollister mall stores? We'll find out soon enough, but the folks on Fifth should brace themselves for a steady chorus of "Hey, What'sup?" and clouds of stinky perfume pumped onto the sidewalk.
Hollister To Open On Fifth Avenue (WWD)
Previously:
Hey, What'sup? It's Hollister, Dude!

Mike Albo Goes Shopping: Psychic Brothel Edition

Mike Albo's visit this week as the Thursday Styles' Critical Shopper to SoHo's Hollister flagship seems far less likely to spark another firestorm of anger than Cintra Wilson's visit to JC Penney last week did, and yet it also concerns the role of physical appearance in contemporary retailing in an even more central way. We knew it wouldn't take to long for him to make his way there there, but Mike doesn't really tell us anything we didn't already know about SoHo's immense, bizarre Hollister. He, like everyone else, has become captivated by the young, ripped, carefully cast and coached staff.

In this four-floor space, gorgeous youth are in every room, behind every doorway, on every stairway landing, saying hello to you, gazing at you, confusing your grasp of reality.

Step into the aggressively alluring world of Hollister and it’s as if you are finally the popular person you always wished you were in high school, or Justin Timberlake and everyone wants you. Except they don’t, because these people are hired to flirt with you.

We all know it's fake, and yet while you're in there, it seems so real. Having found ourselves in a suburban mall over this past weekend, we can report that a Hollister branch store's staff members, while still attractive, are nowhere near as assertively chummy as their SoHo counterparts.
Interestingly, Hollister is one of the few (possibly only) stores that has not allowed The New York Times to photograph its interior for the column. They want to "preserve the customer’s experience", perhaps because there's not much else to the store. While, as we well know, it's hard to tear oneself away from the enthralling staff, Mike does find a flaw or two in the "psychic brothel" that is Hollister.

On the way down I stopped in the fragrance room and sampled the Laguna Beach body mist. It smelled like Jolly Ranchers being breathed on my face by Hayden Panettiere. Here the store also sells its California fragrance, which is spritzed on the mannequins every hour; it’s a noxious concoction that, I assume, is distilled from mink sex glands and the tears of broken-hearted teenage girls.

Yeah, that stuff is truly gross, but it does ease the pain of departure as one lands on the sidewalk outside.
Critical Shopper | Hollister: A Long, Lusty Walk on a Short Pier by Mike Albo (NYTimes)
Hollister 600 Broadway at Houston Street, SoHo
Previously,
Hey, What'sup? It's Hollister, Dude!

From The Comments: Hollister Follow-Up

A Shophound commenter, Ryan, clarified our report that Hollister had hired "customers" to fill its new SoHo Flagship on opening day. He writes:

Um those 'paid customers' as you called them, are actually managers of Hollisters/Abercrombies from the east coast, there to see the store on it's opening day.
They weren't paid, they were there to support the opening of this really great flagship store.

Gee, Ryan, shill much?
So all those madras shirted folks carrying Hollister shopping bags, were really Abercrombie employees from up and down the East Coast invited to come and fill the store and "support" it, apparently by making it look busy —but they weren't paid.
Except they are employees of the parent company.
And they apparently took the trouble to come to Manhattan on opening day out of the goodness of their own hearts. Such devotion.
So, how is that different from what we said before?
Previously: Hey, What'sup? It's Hollister Dude!

Hey, What'sup? It's Hollister, Dude!

Well, there are worse things to experience than being greeted with cheery smiles by one gorgeous person after another. That's what happened to The Shophound at the new Hollister "Epic" Flagship (Manhattan's first unit from the chain) that opened today at Broadway and Houston Street in SoHo. We almost burst into guffaws when a matched of pair polo shirted models flanking a doorway chimed "Hey, What'sup?" in perfect unison on the top floor. Another genetically gifted shirtless dude high-fived us. Seriously. We are not kidding.
"Hey What'sup?" is the prescribed greeting of choice at Hollister, and we easily heard it 50 times or more as we wandered through the massive new store. It would be annoying in the extreme if it weren't delivered with such breezy charm by the fetching staff members who are strategically placed at every available nook and niche throughout the store. They, after all, are just doing their jobs. If there isn't an obvious standing place, they simply congregate in chatty groups stopping to "What'sup" any passersby. There's a shirtless surfer on each staircase landing with a beach babe in tow, and, of course, there are the lifeguard/doormen we shared with you a few days ago, who get their own special greeting: "Hey, welcome to the pier!" We did see the one bikini clad girl at the door who made The Cut so uncomfortable, but truthfully, the ratio of girls in swimsuits to shirtless guys here is about one to a zillion.
The store's design conceit is that it is a vintage California pier, and a look below the railing at the entrance finds piles of sand, approximating a beach while the "windows" throughout the store are really a crafty live feed from Huntington Beach, California. Hollister is an astonishing feat of art direction and casting. In lieu of any actual original product design, the folks at this division of Abercrombie & Fitch have put all their resources in creating an interactive performance piece masquerading as a retail store. Any clothes you might buy are merely a souvenir of your time hanging with the sexy kids at Hollister. It outdoes even the huge Abercrombie Flagship on Fifth Avenue. The store is divided into a confusing, mazelike series of interconnected small rooms, seemingly designed to get you lost in the immense four-level store. Unlike it's brother store's earsplitting dance mix soundtrack uptown, Hollister's background music is a less oppressive beachy pop, and the lighting, kept at cocktail lounge levels at Abercrombie, is spookhouse dark in places here. Brighter spots are provided by large crystal chandeliers hung at eye level, a whimsical trope we have seen before. The décor is the vintag-ey hypercluttered look we have seen in so many places that even Ralph Lauren, its originator, seems to be moving away from. It hardly seems possible that the brand has the breadth of merchandise to fill a small department store sized space, so they instead have filled it with beautiful employees, and not just the salesmodels we have come to expect. As The Shophound meandered through the crowded store, it seemed hard to believe that on its first day, it had attracted so many shopping bag carrying customers dressed head to toe in Hollister gear, and yet there they were, ambling through the store in excited groups with their purses and backpacks like typical lower Broadway shoppers. But wait, could they really all have coincidentally decided to put on madras shirts this morning?
No. No they could not, and by the time we had made it through the store it seemed clear that Hollister had not only hired a blindingly gorgeous staff, but also a bunch of damned good-looking (but not quite model-stunning) customers to roam through the store and mill about on the sidewalk as well!
Bravo!
Nothing pleases us more than having our expectations exceeded. Not content to cast the store's staff, Hollister has also handpicked our fellow shoppers as well. Any product for sale seems so beside the point.
But who cares? Let's go downstairs again to see how many different ways the kids can say, "Hey, What'sup?". "HEY What'sup?" "Hey, WHAT'sup?" "Hey, What'sUP?"
Hollister 600 Broadway at Houston Street, SoHo
Previously,
Hollister Update: Hunks Installed
Abercrombie Under Pressue: A First Look At Hollister

Hollister Update: Hunks Installed

Click to view larger image in a new window.
You know you want to.

Though the store doesn't open until Thursday, the semi-clad doormen have arrived and apparently will be serving as advance-men for the big event.
They told us it was going to be "Awesome."

Abercrombie Under Pressue: A First Look At Hollister

WWD has the first glimpse inside the new "Epic" Hollister flagship set to open Thursday in SoHo (It's the big event of the week, so expect to hear a lot about it between now and then). Included in an interview with A&F CEO Michael Jeffries, we can see the dramatic cast iron staircase that will presumably be a centerpiece of the four-level, 40,000 square foot store. Jeffries promises a lavish interior composed of surf shacks with video screens throughout the store bringing beach footage to SoHo. Think of it as California by way of Columbus, Ohio. As usual, there will be no less than two shirtless models in board shorts to greet customers at the front door, and plenty of nubile "salesmodels" inside (fair hiring practices be damned).
Like any CEO, Jeffries is all smiles and good news, though Abercrombie & Fitch's same store sales numbers continue slump in the double digits across the board, including those at the Fifth Avenue flagship, and a variety of analysts chime in with their (mostly predictable) observations that while the company is finally starting to respond to its slowing business, it may not be doing enough to offer newness and otherwise adapt to customers' changing tastes and demands.
Jeffries confirms that the Hollister brand's international expansion hinges on the success of this new flagship, but don't expect any opening day promotions. It'll be full-price all the time at the flagship stores, because, really, who's looking for a sale these days anyway... right?
A&F Stays on Message With Global Strategy (WWD)
Hollister (Official Site) & Ride The Wave (SoHo Epic Store Site)

Opening Soon: The Scaffolding Shrinks As Hollister Reveals Itself

Even as it dissolves its ill-fated Ruehl division, Abercrombie & Fitch is getting ready to open Manhattan's first taste of its still popular Hollister chain. The plywood at 600 Broadway has shrunken to barely a single story revealing a façade that is...not appreciably different from what the building looked like when it was a Pottery Barn aside from a coat of white paint.
The so called "Epic" flagship store is set to open in just over a week, and the question here is not so much what to expect (we have a pretty good handle on their M.O. by now) but how much and to what degree?
We are well acquainted with the brand's boilerplate logo tees and flip flops by now, but are the "salesmodels" all going to be as gorgeous as we have come to expect? Will the older and somewhat less stunning still be banished to the stockrooms? How earsplitting will the music be? Will they be able to whip up a Topshop level of interest and frenzy? Giveaways? Well, that's probably a no on those last two.
Hollister's "Ride The Wave" mini site has a short film offering, along with the usual toned torsos, glimpses of the store's proposed interior which promises to be a beachy marvel of set design and art direction. It is, let's face it, atmosphere and ambiance that is the Abercrombie organization's real contribution to the retail business.
Hollister opens on Thursday, July 16th.

Unsurprising Announcements: Ruehl Gets The Axe

We could brag that we saw this coming, but that's not really saying too much. Frankly, we couldn't see the point of Ruehl when Abercrombie & Fitch launched the new division a few years ago, and apparently neither did much of anybody else. The parent company announced today that it would be shuttering the chain following a month of strategic review. Ruehl posted losses of $58 million last year, which would be a substantial sum for a department store chain like Saks or Neiman's, let alone a measly 29-unit specialty chain.
That leaves a choice little spot on Bleecker Street where the chain has an accessories-only location to be vacated just as the company is readying a huge new Hollister flagship in SoHo.
Conventional wisdom would have other retailers vying to take over the lease on the still-desirable street, but we are betting that Abercrombie will hold the spot for another of its nameplates, possibly Gilly Hicks, the women's intimates chain (with an imaginary history in Sydney, Australia) launched last year, whose website predictable features lots of images and a promotional video of women in and out of lingerie frolicking on the beach with mostly naked men.
Sound familiar? Don't bruise your fingers clicking over there.
Plus ça change...
A&F Decides Ruehl's Fate (WWD)
Abercrombie & Fitch to Close RUEHL Operations; Company Amends Credit Agreement (PR Newswire)
Previously: Ruehl's Days Are Numbered

Ruehl's Days Are Numbered

There are many retailers who have done everything they can to respond to the current economic climate with price reductions and other promotions designed to keep customers coming back to stores and keep their sales numbers up as much as possible.
Then there's Abercrombie & Fitch.
A&F's business has nosedived a whopping 23.5% in the last quarter, sustaining a loss of $26.8 million, which is bad news by anyone's standards. They have consistently refused to reduce prices, but have not really offered much newness to customers to spark their interest. It doesn't take a genius to see what their main problem is. With an economic shift, the company has hit a wall.
As the company is about to open a lavish flagship in SoHo for its second, more successful division, Hollister, it is putting its third nameplate, Ruehl, under 'Strategic Review' according to WWD.
With a relatively small size of 28 stores including Bleecker Street's accessories-only location, Ruehl has never grown to be the success its parent had hoped for, mostly, in our humble opinion, because its merchandise offers little variation from its sibling stores, which are usually clustered together in the mall to begin with. Its same store sales have plunged a whopping 34% since last year. WWD suggests that such reviews often result in a closure or sale of the business. We would not be so bold as to make that prediction, but we wouldn't be at all surprised to see one little storefront on Bleecker become available soon.
Abercrombie Begins ‘Strategic Review’ of Ruehl (WWD)

Midtown Changeovers: Little "a" abercrombie Pushes Hickey-Freeman Off 5th

It's a bold-ish move considering that its sales numbers are in the crapper, but Abercrombie & Fitch's kid's division, abercrombie (in all lowercase, please) will be taking over Hickey-Freeman lease at 666 Fifth Avenue when that store is vacated at the end of this month. Hickey sold its lease to cut costs as its parent company slogs through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and abercrombie swapped the slightly smaller parcel it was already planning to take out of the vacant Brooks Brothers space next door for the newly available space.
What does this mean for Fifth Avenue? Who knows. Although the big Abercrombie & Fitch store a couple of blocks north continues to draw crowds, overall the brand's business continues to drop as it will not reduce prices and customers seem to have decided that they don't need as many pairs of cargo shorts as they thought they did. Still, are we to expect shirtless tween boys loitering in the doorway like at its older brother up the street? We hope not, but a quick look at the division's website shows a typically Abercrombiesque shot of a suspiciously young and headless torso about to toss a football.
ICK. (caps lock intentional)
Abercrombie To Take Over Hickey Freeman Flagship (WWD)
Previously: Abercrombie In and Brooks Brothers Out at 666 Fifth