Andy Spade On J.Crew's Tribeca Store

Brandweek (click here) had an interesting Q&A session with Andy Spade about J.Crew's Liquor Store...

Q&A: Andy Spade on J.Crew's Retail Experiment
By Lucia Moses
January 22, 2009

Andy Spade challenged conventional retailing when his firm, Partners & Spade, produced a boutique for J.Crew in an old liquor store. He and partner Anthony Sperduti walked AdweekMedia through their new retail experiment in New York's Noho section, where collections of staplers and scorpion paperweights make more for a gallery/curiosity shop than a store.

AdweekMedia: What do you want people to experience when they walk in?
Andy Spade: Something they haven't experienced in a store or gallery. Galleries are intimidating, and we wanted to avoid that. We wanted it to be about all the things we love, just make it experiential. The cross-section of commerce and art, done right, and the cross section of high and low, is very interesting to us. You can buy gum and the New York Post, but you can also find a piece by Robert Hawkins, an artist up in Paris. It's that accessible.

AM: What do you hope to learn that will help your retail clients?
AS: Stores and retail environments that have done well attract curious people. People who are attracted to that kind of thing are going to tell you a lot about what they think is interesting, and they'll communicate with us about that. It makes it much more relevant when we're dealing with clients.

AM: What do you think you'll learn that'll help retailers that are worried about just getting people in the doors?
AS: You have to be resourceful. We designed the space for J.Crew, and it's done very well for them because people are looking for new ideas. And it's small. Guys don't want to go into a big store and hunt around. I think there's room for these really intimate kinds of environments that sell really special things. It's not about luxury. It's about doing something that's exclusive, and that doesn't mean expensive. The specialness is what luxury is. No one wants racks of shirts.

AM: In your store, you have to climb a ladder to reach the impulse items.
AS: It shows we don't take ourselves too seriously. That there can be fun with commerce. This is our past-confidence trophy service. If you have an insecurity in life, we're willing to make a trophy for you and back-date it so that you're able to overcome, with time, your insecurities. In the back, there's a 15-by-15 wall we built that we're going to sell as indoor space. We'll sell it as billboard space inside our store. The comment on how advertising's so crazy, product placement is a joke. We're being totally honest about it.

What are your thoughts on the article? Do you think the Liquor Store has been a good move for J.Crew? Do you think J.Crew should continue to expand on this concept-store?