by Gerald Flores
Images by Liz Barclay
Concepts is breaking into new territory. The sneaker store, which has been a mainstay to New Englanders since 1996, is touching down in New York City—a process that’s been over five years in the making.
But, this isn’t your normal sneaker boutique. In fact, the store’s owners would prefer that you not call it a store (for now). Operating on a part-time schedule, Concepts NY will act as more of an exhibition space, showcasing the boutique’s latest collaboration projects. Of course, New Yorkers will be able to buy the collabs and Concepts apparel there as well.
“This gets to be a fun project that we get to put a little energy towards, and then hopefully get back some amazing results in return,” Concepts manager and buyer Deon Point said, adding that he will be shuffling back and forth from the original Concepts location and New York City.
The layout of the store will morph to represent for each new collab that Concepts launches. Kicking things off this Saturday is the Moet-inspired New Balance 997, where the inside of the space is decorated with details like champagne bottles on the wall and cork displays for the sneaker. The space’s layout will change again to reflect its “Regata”—inspired New Balance 496 next week (more to come).
Here, Point details the inspiration behind Concepts latest collab and what people can expect with the new location, which is located at 225 Hudson St. in New York.
What were some aspects of the original Concepts that you wanted to have in the New York location?
There’s a similar aesthetic in the ceiling. Obviously we use the same wood. Initially, I wanted to do something totally different. But after talking with the guys, it was kind of cool to bring that in from the other store.
The best part about the whole space is that it’s chameleon. Even the wood in the ceiling can come out. Everything you see in the store is mobile. So when we launch the “Regata” New Balance next week, and other projects, it’ll change quite a bit. It’ll look completely different each time.
How does this week’s store layout reflect collab you guys are launching this week?
Obviously there’s an underlying Rose theme, and that theme is represented with all of the bottles on the wall. Outside of the cork, we did the install in the middle of the store. We also did this crazy install with a champagne bottle exploding. Unfortunately that didn’t pan out. And the second phase of that was a window stencil that didn’t meet our expectations either.
From the outside looking in, there’s definitely a lead back to the story. From the color palette, to the Moet theme that flows through the store.
How is this collab different from others that Concepts has done?
With New Balance it is always fun. Everytime we approach them, we always try to give them a little bit of a headache. We loved how the Mint went over. We loved that blocking and we wanted to simulate that, but kind of go in a different direction.
We embossed the suede here instead of the plastic piece, and we added the 3M croc, which we thought would bring it to life a little bit.
We used ultra premium suedes, which everyone says, and I feel kind of cliche saying it. New Balance actually has that and we through a couple lace options in there, because kids love to defer back to their identity through that.
We also did a crazy box. Packaging is huge for us, and that’s one thing we don’t ever take shortcuts on. We’ll probably take a loss on this box, but we wanted to make sure it helped fulfill the story with a croc-embossed box as well. The people we were working with weren’t sure they could bring it to life, but they did an amazing job.
You really never hear a store owner openly admit that they’re taking a loss on something like packaging that no one really wears. Why do it?
Everything we execute, from the shoe to the store, will all kind of help tell this full story.
We give quality to our consumer at any cost. At times, our costs, and the perceived value of what the consumer thinks in their minds are two different things. The reality is when you add another lace and when you add croc-embossed 3M—that drastically has the price jump up. These are just the things we have to endure through the whole process of creating a shoe.
Oftentimes we work with the vendor, and New Balance is great with us, in getting us as low as we can. But there’s times when we’d incur a little more than what we’d hoped. The inline version is $200 retail. If you look at all the bells and whistles that came with it, $35 more is really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
With the box and the packaging, we thought the whole luxury vibe of where New Balance is headed that we could assist them with that. It just adds to the value of the shoe for the consumer. Most importantly, when a kid looks into his closet and sees 50-60 shoes, for us to hold that real estate down and the first thing he sees is that box, it’s going to be one of the first things that jump out at him. That’s a huge push for us.
We love going to Japan and seeing how people present and package things, it’s amazing to see how they take the product and present it to consumers. I’ve bought a sweatshirt and have the guy walk me out to the door and put me in a car. That level of detail is amazing. When we came back from those trips, we just said, why don’t we just start doing our own boxes. Not because the vendors fall short, but to tell our own story. Over time, I’ve seen kids take pictures with like 30 Concepts boxes. They all have this special box,and they all have a special place, it’s really cool when you look back at it.
What’s next for the space after your New Balance projects?
We’re entertaining a few things. I’ve been told not to discuss that, but I can shed light on somethings. The focus right now is New Balance, we haven’t really thought past it. There’s a multitude of things we can do here.
We can do installations and exhibitions, showcasing brands as opposed to just collaborations. There are some things we’re looking forward to doing. Obviously, there’s a big season up ahead, and then next year, you have the All Star game right off the rip, Fashion Week in New York, these are all big initiatives for us, so we’re focusing heavily on that.
Again, it’s a chameleon space. We can make it into whatever we want it to be. That’s probably the funnest part for us. As much that goes into it, we can constantly change it and it’ll create energy at retail, which is something that I think is missing.
It’s kind of the Amazon age where these kids just buy everything online. We have kids who live 5 minutes away from us, but they buy everything online. It’s crazy because the way we grew up was entirely different. It’s funny to see.
There’s obviously a lot of competition in New York in terms of sneaker stores. Do you guys think you can take a piece of this market?
Yea. There’s a lot of guys here that are doing a consistent job. They’ve kind of carved out their lane and it’s such a huge city. There’s so much going on. I don’t think it’ll interrupt what everyone else is doing, but more so, just add to it. We came to New York because it’s the epicenter of fashion, and literally everything. Things get sucked into the pipeline and they progress so fast, that it was something we couldn’t not be a part of. Even if it’s on a smaller scale. That’s why we chose to come here. I don’t think it’s because we thought anybody was soft, or that they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. There’s so much going on out here. Why not be a part of it and join in?
We’ve been planning carefully years. It’s just that we had to calculate what we do and make sure we’re doing it the right way. This is a great way for us to gauge the reception we receive and to see how we can do better moving forward, if we really want to plant a flag and do something else.
So you’ll be back and forth from New York and Cambridge?
Yea. Until I get banned from the city. I have a Red Sox hat here somewhere, so let’s see how that goes over. Cambridge is still very much a focus for us. I know a few of our consumers commented that we’re going to forget about it, but that’s never going to be the case. That’s our roots and that’s what got us to where we are now.
Gerald Flores is the Editor-In-Chief of Sole Collector and you can follow him on Twitter here.
