Dive Brief:

• Contemporary apparel brand Rails will open its first Washington, D.C. retail store in late October in the city’s trendy Georgetown neighborhood, per an email sent to Retail Dive.
• The Los Angeles-based brand signed a 10-year lease on the 2,200-square-foot retail location at 3239 M Street NW. The lease was facilitated through D.C. real estate developer EastBanc. The store will mark the brand’s ninth store globally.
• The Rails Georgetown store will carry the brand’s full collection of California-inspired apparel for men and women and be featured in an environment accented by a minimalist color palette, wood detailing, vintage textiles and succulent landscaping.

Dive Insight:

Founded in 2008 by California entrepreneur Jeff Abrams, Rails started by selling a single hat and has grown into a full collection of casual apparel that defines its classic silhouettes through innovative fabrics. The brand markets itself as having an effortless California aesthetic and global sensibility.

Rails was primarily a wholesale brand in 2015, when model (and then-wife of NFL quarterback Tom Brady) Gisele Bündchen was seen wearing a Rails plaid shirt at The Super Bowl, in front of a record 114 million TV viewers, per the company.

Rails shifted to e-commerce in 2017 before opening its first store in 2020 in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood. In three years the brand has added brick-and-mortar locations in San Francisco; Palo Alto, California; Newport Beach, California; Paris, Amsterdam and London.

“We’re excited to expand our East Coast fleet of stores and bring Rails to an existing loyal base of customers built through our wholesale distribution network in the area,” Abrams, Rails’ founder and creative director, said in a statement. “Our store is located on one of the best streets in the city, and will be an amazing opportunity for us to share our brand experience directly with the local customer.“

Georgetown has increasingly become a popular destination for DTC brands looking to open stand-alone stores in the Washington, D.C. area.  Some of those brands with shops along Georgetown’s popular M street include Faherty, Glossier, Indochino, Reformation and Allbirds.

"We are excited that Rails has chosen Georgetown for its first brick and mortar store in D.C. as part of its national expansion,” Barry Greenberg, vice president of leasing at EastBanc, said in a statement. “Rails’ high-quality, sustainable apparel will provide Georgetown shoppers with an attractive option for classic fashion."