BELATED HOMECOMING: Kate Spade Finally Heads Uptown
July 27, 2012
It seems hard to imagine that Kate Spade is just now coming to the Upper East Side. After all, if there was a way to easily describe this brand's image, it would be "Preppy, Hamptons/Park Avenue Lady". Only yesterday, however, the brand announced that it would be opening its third New York store at 789 Madison Avenue near 67th Street. With shops downtown in SoHo and on lower Fifth Avenue, it's about time the popular handbag and accessory brand came home to its natural customer in Lilly Pulitzer territory. Trusty, up-to-date Google Street View tells us that the glass-fronted shop used to be a David Webb jewelry store, but, in fact, it has been spending most of the year as a temporary Chanel boutique. The space will offer 1,500 square feet on the ground level plus a mezzanine and third floor which the brand can fill with its burgeoning product offerings which now include apparel and home furnishings. Kate Spade’s chief executive officer Craig Leavitt tells WWD, “This flagship will give us the opportunity to showcase all product categories. It will allow our customers to be able to immerse themselves in Kate Spade New York as a lifestyle." The new store is part of plan by parent company Fifth & Pacific (formerly Liz Claiborne Inc.) to aggressively expand the brand's retail presence. Now that Kate has an uptown pad, can her cooler little brother Jack, who already has stores in SoHo and on Bleecker Street, be far behind?
Kate Spade Set for Madison Ave. (WWD)
Kate Spade (Official Site)
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