New Balance on Thursday opened its first North American Experience Store in New York City's Flatiron District. The store, located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 20th Street, features a Mondo running track and a unique Demonstration Area where New Balance associates showcase the company's domestic manufacturing capabilities.
“We are excited to open this store in New York City that pays tribute to our heritage and spirit, celebrates our innovation and continues the high standard of retail excellence we established two years ago with our first-ever New Balance Experience Store in Beijing,” says Rob DeMartini, chief executive officer and president of New Balance. “This store invites consumers from one of the world's greatest cities to engage with our brand's story and the passion of our associates that is 105 years in the making.”
The ground-floor, 4,000+ square foot New Balance Experience Store is located in New York's historic and fashionable Flatiron District. The store's decor features restored original brick walls and floor-to-ceiling columns and pays homage to the brand's signature grey while introducing modern day technology-based offerings amidst an evolved red and grey color scheme and vibrant product photography. A brand DNA ribbon on the store's ceiling extends 60 feet from the entrance to the back of the store and takes the consumer through a chronological journey documenting the brand's powerful past, present and future, using vintage and modern images.
In 1906, New Balance founder William J. Riley recognized a chicken uses its three claws to maintain perfect balance and was inspired to apply the balance principle to his arch support system design. The chicken foot is still one of the brand's iconic images and is woven into the store's textural design discovery elements such as the transparency film on the windows and doors.
The store is “purposefully cross-merchandised to offer head-to-toe brand looks for consumers.” The Innovation Area features the brand's newest innovative performance product while the Look Book Wall showcases the brand's lifestyle offerings. A two-lane Mondo track runs along one of the store's perimeter walls and features a sunken-in treadmill for gait/form analysis. A 24-hour projection texture mapping showcases product images and brand videos as well as real time brand content through Klip.tv in four distinct areas of the store.
New Balance said the store will showcase the company's commitment to domestic manufacturing as the only athletic brand to continue to manufacture shoes in the U.S. through a Demonstration Area in the front of the store. Behind a glass-enclosed space, a seasoned New Balance associate from the company's Skowhegan, Maine manufacturing facility will assemble 880 running shoes and additional models to be determined in the future. Each pair will be sold in an 'Assembled in NYC' drawstring bag stamped with the date made and edition number. The store will also host a live video feed from the company's Lawrence, MA manufacturing floor during work hours. “We are extremely proud to be able to showcase the passion and skill of our domestic manufacturing associates directly to consumers for the first time through this Demonstration Area,” says DeMartini.
