Savannah College of Art is getting into the retail game.
On Wednesday, the school will launch Bazaar by shopSCAD, an exclusive boutique concept located at 318 East Liberty Street in downtown historic Savannah, Ga., housed in a building that was once an art gallery space for the university. The 1,000-square-foot shop will offer a collection of atelier-created ready-to-wear garments, accessories, bench-crafted jewelry, ceramics and objets d’art. These limited-run and one-of-a-kind pieces showcase the talent of SCAD students and alumni.
SCAD alum and stylist Ash Williams, who formerly had her own New York City designer vintage boutique, has been brought on as store manager for Bazaar by shopSCAD.
Inside the Bazaar by shopSCAD boutique.
Aman Shakya, courtesy of SCAD
Presented as an elevated salon-style retail experience, Bazaar by shopSCAD serves as a destination to shop for pieces created exclusively by SCAD’s network of designers. The boutique opens with a selected assortment from the university’s community of artisans including SCAD students Ellie Wamke, Jinseo Park and Harris Barnes, along with alumni such as Christopher John Rogers, Kate Barton, Timothy Underwood of Despise Gossip, among others.
By showcasing student and alumni work within a luxury retail framework, Bazaar by shopSCAD serves as an extension of the SCAD academic experience where concepts are cultivated in the classroom and evolve into real-world execution. Through this direct-to-consumer platform, SCAD students from the schools of Fashion, De Sole School of Business Innovation and Fine Arts gain hands-on exposure to the luxury retail ecosystem spanning design and product development.
“With Bazaar by shopSCAD, we’re bringing fresh energy and new voices to design retail,” said Dirk Standen, dean of the SCAD School of Fashion. “For our students, it’s an invaluable opportunity to gain firsthand experience selling their work in a real-world environment. For consumers, it’s a chance to discover the next generation of design talent and gain access to designs that in many cases you don’t find anywhere else. We see Bazaar as an ever-evolving creative laboratory with a bold, playful point of view.”
Standen said the store came about quite organically. “Every year at our runway show, people come up to us and say, ‘Oh, can I buy that look from the runway?’ And we’ve never really had a way to be able to fulfill that. Students have been able to do that on an individual basis, but we haven’t really been able to take advantage of that interest,” he said. “We have had professional mentors come down such as Daniel Roseberry, Willy Chavarria or Peter Copping, and they’ll often say about a student’s work that’s it’s ready to go into a store.”
According to Standen, the goal is for students to go from creating these “one-offs” to more professional runs of their designs. “SCAD’s goal has always been to prepare our students to thrive in the real world, right? This really came from our president, Paula Wallace, who said what better way is there to do that than by giving the opportunity to experience what really works at retail? And this won’t just benefit our fashion and accessory designers or our jewelry designers, but our merchandising students will be able to gain experience, as well as marketing, visual display, social media, promotion, all those things,” Standen said.
A look at the new Bazaar by shopSCAD boutique in Savannah, Ga.
Aman Shakya, courtesy of SCAD
Standen said it will be a revenue share with the students. “It’s definitely fairly generous in terms of what the students get,” he said. He said the school has had a store called shopSCAD on Bull Street in Savannah, which sells artwork by its graduates, along with jewelry and ceramics.
Standen noted that over the last three or four years, he’s noticed an entrepreneurial mindset among the students, and many of them are launching their own brands and building a social media following. (Wamke has already launched her own label of playful, colorful wardrobe essentials and has an active social media following.) Standen noted that Underwood offers individual takes on workwear, and the school stocks the brand.
The store will rely on Williams and Maria Korovilas, associate chair of fashion design at SCAD Atlanta, who has been working closely with students, to curate the buy and assortment and set the pricing. Since SCAD owns the building they don’t have to pay rent.
“We’re hoping we can bring excitement to retail. I think almost by definition, sort of everything we’re offering will be something the consumer hasn’t seen before or that they’re discovering. Hopefully there’s this real sense of discovery every time you step into the store,” he said.
Asked if there will be a store at SCAD’s Atlanta campus too, Standen said, “Stay tuned.”
The store is open Monday and Tuesday, by appointment only, Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.
