Title Nine will open two stores in the Chicago market, marking the company’s first store openings in the Midwest. According to the Chicago Tribune, the first will open by the end August in downtown Evanston and the second in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in October.
The openings will bring the 21-year-old women's activewear direct mail and retailer's store count to 18 nationwide. Emeryville, CA-based Title Nine distributes about 30 million catalogs a year but has but has been slowly building its store base. Until recently, its stores were focused in California, the Pacific Northwest and Colorado.
Title Nine opened in Madison, WI, and Edina, MN, in the past year. It also opened a store in 2009 in Austin, TX.
According to the Tribune, Title Nine tested the Chicago market in July 2009 through a temporary pop-up store for a week in an empty strip mall storefront in Evanston.
