Asprey Reopens Madison Avenue Flagship
Asprey is reopening its New York flagship to offer guests an immersive shopping experience.
The more than 240-year-old British accessories brand is reopening its unit at 678 Madison Avenue on Tuesday after remodeling the store to mimic the immersive experience the brand offers at its London flagship.
“The most important thing is that in the U.K. when we opened our flagship store on Bruton Street, we worked with 40 different British workshops,” said John Rigas, chairman of Asprey. “Everything was done in Britain to showcase the best of Britain and create that immersion effect. The immersion effect was to immerse the client into the brand and make them feel like they’re walking in a London mansion.”
Rigas explained the immersive experience touches on all the senses and showcases the products in a museum-like setting. The flagship will have most of the brand’s offerings, highlighting hero products across jewelry, leather goods, homeware and silver pieces.
“We have a very large customer base in New York and the surrounding areas,” he continued. “They buy from us from all different categories that we have. Whether it’s jewelry, leather, silver, crystal, china, home products or timepieces — the store is serving their needs. We’ve been in business for a long time, so we have a very large client base that comes to us for gifts, gifts for themselves and unique products that they can’t find anywhere else because our company is known for having unique products.”
The New York flagship is Asprey’s 10th store across the globe. The brand has stores in the U.K., Switzerland and Japan, as well as other U.S. stores in Beverly Hills, Miami, Palm Beach, Fla., and Southampton, N.Y. Asprey will be opening its 11th store at London’s Peninsula Hotel later this year.
“The origins of the company always included retail outlets,” Rigas said regarding the importance of retail. “In the case of luxury products that are at the top of the pyramid, both in terms of the value, the quality, the uniqueness and the innovation, those products are typically sold in a physical environment because the client wants to see them.”
Asprey has had a checkered history in New York under its various owners. For years it had a small store in Manhattan that performed well. In 2003, under then-owners Lawrence Stroll and Silas Chou, it opened a 20,000-square-foot, $50 million flagship in Trump Tower, only to shutter it three years later following significant losses. After Stroll and Chou sold the brand, it moved to much smaller temporary premises on East 57th Street only to move again to a store on Madison Avenue at 70th Street. It then relocated again under Rigas to the location that it is now reopening.
