John Hardy has some new digs.
The jewelry brand moved its SoHo flagship in New York to 147 Spring Street, where it has 1,800 square feet of space. The store, which opened Wednesday, replaces the brand’s previous Prince Street flagship, a stone’s throw away.
The new store boasts more space, and the idea of starting from scratch in a new site made more sense than renovating the existing one, said Reed Krakoff, creative chairman of John Hardy. “It’s a nice area that has a lot of luxury brands right around that block so it just felt like a better location for us,” Krakoff said. “I’m trying to maintain this spirit of the brand without any literal interpretations of it — create a space that was worthy of the jewelry but, at the same time, didn’t feel fussy or stuffy or traditional.”
Opening the store is a 10-foot sculpture of a bracelet from John Hardy’s Spear collection, which was also Krakoff’s design debut. Inside, a 25-foot hanging bamboo sculpture from Bali spans the ceiling. The first selling area highlights key collections before moving to a men’s area and then Lovestruck, the brand’s first diamond-focused collection.
“The space is quite flexible,” Krakoff said. “The space in the back actually can be used as an artisan series, or can be flexed for doing collaborations or doing new product categories. The front is the focal area with new collections, seasonal newness, product we’re trying to get in front of the consumer. And the middle of the space is a mix that changes seasonally of core collections, new collections and collaborations. There’s a nice sense of discovery as you move through the store.”
Inside John Hardy’s flagship.
Courtesy of John Hardy
In terms of decor, the Balinese bamboo sculpture is meant to mirror the woven metals throughout the brand’s offering. The walls range from slatted wood to custom clay tiles in the back, which flank a Krakoff-designed mirrored artwork with marigold porcelain tiles on the back wall.
“All the materials in the space are essentially grown out of that sensibility of things that are handmade,” he said. “Those are cut porcelain tiles in marigold glaze, with each done by hand. They’re assembled in a geometric arrangement that gives them some kind of graphic sensibility and really just creates a representation of the brand’s iconic color.”
The plan is to replicate the store concept in other key markets, though nothing is imminent. “We had a couple of years to retool the brand, create new product, new marketing, new packaging, new branding. The brand’s doing very well,” Krakoff said. “We didn’t want to roll out a bunch of stores until we felt ready and had proof of that formula, which we do now. We’re not going to open many doors in the next year or two, but we’re definitely looking to open more locations that express the same modernized view of what John Hardy is.”
It’s a good time for the brand, which is growing across its product collections and across channels.
“We’re growing in all channels — direct-to-consumer, wholesale and retail — in a meaningful way. Things that take a few years are starting to click. Maybe the marketing starts first and the product does second,” Krakoff said. “We’ve had a steady stream of new collections that have been very successful. Lovestruck is essentially our number one and that’s the newest collection.”
