Tory Burch opens new Flatiron shop

Tory Sport, Tory Burch's new activewear brand, has opened their first location at 129 Fifth Avenue in New York City's Flatiron District. The new store is adjacent to competing athletic wear brands such as Nike, Athleta, and Lululemon. The space is 5,000 square feet, and features the full activewear collection including shoes, bags, clothing, and accessories.

The collection will also begin wholesaling next month at Barneys.

Burch was smart to set up shop in the Flatiron District, because over the last several years it has become home to many athletic clubs such as Soul Cycle, Shadowbox, and Tone House.

Roger Farrah, co-CEO of Tory Burch, discussed the potential of Tory Sport's business telling WWD that "We think it could be huge. We think it can be a billion dollar business. I think it can go in more places than Tory Burch can go. There are communities, there are neighborhoods and markets with the way this lifestyle is expanding. I was in Asia recently and so many of the big department stores there are incredibly productive and are staples of the community, but have no active or sports base, and they’re all scrambling to figure out how to create whole floors of it and dedicated space.”

Tory Burch opens Tory Sport store in Flatiron

In the long term, they hope to add more freestanding stores and shop-in-shops in Asia.

Currently, 60 percent of the Tory Sport customers they are getting on the website torysport.com are new, while the other 40 percent are crossing over from Tory Burch. Tory Sport items are also available at a pop-up shop on 257 Elizabeth Street in SoHo. In May, the Tory Burch store in Easthampton is expected to convert to a Tory Sport store. Barneys New York will also become the exclusive retailer of Tory Sport next month, carrying the collection on barneys.com as well as their stores in New York, Beverly Hills, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and Las Vegas. Expanded wholesale distribution is expected to being in 2017.

In terms of product rollout, the store will have new products every six weeks, and 30 percent of the merchandise will be bestsellers that carry over from season to season. The salespeople in the store will all have iPads and mobile points-of-sale.

The next step for Burch with Tory Sport is international distribution. She is also hoping to eventually add outerwear and ski.

Photo:torysport.com