Dive Brief:
- Tommy Hilfiger is "reshaping our retail landscape in North America, closing the New York City Fifth Avenue TOMMY HILFIGER store and the TOMMY HILFIGER store on Collins Avenue in Miami, Florida," CEO Daniel Grieder said in a statement emailed to Retail Dive.
- The move is, "in line with our strategic objective to further reach and engage with digitally-savvy North American consumers," he also said. "[W]e will focus on next generation retail experiences and partnerships to stay ahead of today's continuously changing shopping habits and preferences."
- The PVH-owned brand joins Gap, HBC's Lord & Taylor and Ralph Lauren Polo in abandoning the tony shopping street, though Dyson, Nike and discounter Five Below, among others, have entered.
Dive Insight:
The clean-out of longstanding apparel brands from New York City's Fifth Avenue shows that there's really no landscape that's immune from store closures.
As retailers of all stripes move to stoke digital sales and abandon low-performing stores, the country is watching lesser malls empty out at a fairly rapid pace. Year to date, U.S. retailers have announced 5,399 store closures and 2,396 store openings, compared to 5,726 closures and 3,243 openings for all of 2018, according to the latest Coresight Research store tracker report.
Grieder said that North America remains critical to Tommy Hilfiger sales, but also noted that direct-to-consumer and wholesale are now in focus. "Leveraging our Store-of-the-Future concepts rolled out in the global retail landscape, going forward, North America will be the lighthouse region to develop and test new modular, digitally-infused retail concepts," he said. "We continue to invest in tommy.com and the ongoing expansion of strong wholesale distribution partners that keep consumers at the heart of our brand."
While Fifth Avenue is seeing turnover, the city is now hosting a new, state-of-the-art mall development, Hudson Yards, that boasts food, public art and both high-end and middle-brow shopping opportunities.
