Opening Ceremony is a boutique in New York City full of contemporary clothing including its house brand and various collaborations with brands and artists. Nestled in between Soho and Chinatown, it is a must-see for every tourist and a hip place to shop for the locals. I was compelled to share this business with you all after watching their interview with VBS. What intrigued me was how their unique buying strategy has helped to keep the brand relevant and innovative in the eyes of the consumer, year after year. The owners, Humberto Leon and Carol Kim, travel to a destination and bring back approximately ten designers to showcase in their store, ensuring that one brand showcased is in popular demand to drive sales, bring in-store traffic and to expose the other, lesser known but equally as interesting brands. Although many of you already know that an established brand (sales and traffic driver) + up-and-coming designers (brand building attributes such as trendy, innovative, forward thinking) = a recipe for a successful retail boutique, it was the use of this strategy backed by interesting co-branding and collaboration opportunities that really established a differentiated position for the Opening Ceremony brand - a brand which has now grown to three locations, an online store, and a network of boutiques globally which stock and carry its house brand.
The owners' vision of fun and fashion is clearly communicated through their unique product curation, branding, co-branding, collaborations (with Chloe Sevigny, Levi's, and Keds to name a few), and mission of bringing pieces of the world back to New York, creating a space for idea generation and sharing. Maybe this is allusion is a bit farfetched, but Opening Ceremony reminds me of the positive side of globalization in the way the brand chooses to bring cross-cultural ideas closer together in one space. Unfortunately, I am having video embedding issues. Click the links below for the interview which talks about their roots, strategy, and new projects such as their collaboration with Ace Hotel in New York. (!)
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