G-Star Plans to Open More U.S. Stores
Dutch premium-denim label G-Star plans to make a bigger splash with its branded stores in the United States.
By 2015, there will be 50 U.S. G-Star denim boutiques if things go according to plan for the company. There are currently 12 G-Star boutiques operating in America. The industrial chic look of the label has been popular throughout the world, and there are 215 G-Star boutiques doing business around the globe. Stuart Millar, G-Star’s vice president for North America, predicted that the American market would embrace the novelty of G-Star because the brand has kept a relatively low-profile since it was introduced in America in 2002.
The label’s retail strategy is based on franchising. It plays to G-Star’s strengths, Millar said. “We are wholesalers, not retailers,” he said. The label looks for retail partners with a strong knowledge of the regions in which G-Star is seeking to expand. The label seeks to do business with experienced retailers but also considers novices.
Long-term partnerships are important to G-Star. Franchise contracts are intended to last five years. “We prefer to open multiple stores with one person,” Millar said. The label’s 12 American stores are run by three different entrepreneurs.
The label hopes to build more stores in California as well as in Texas, Florida, Oregon, Arizona and the New York, Boston and Chicago areas. The typical G-Star boutique footprint is 2,500 to 6,000 square feet. More information can be found on G-Star franchising at its Web site (www.g-star.com) or by calling the label’s West Coast manager, Alex Matthews, at (310) 880-9298.
Jeff Shafer, the owner and designer of Agave, a Vancouver, Wash.–based premium-denim company, said franchise partnerships can be beneficial to retailers and wholesalers even in a weak economy. “The risk is on the franchisees,” he said. “But G-Star is partnering with them, and it is not like [the franchisees] are out there by themselves.”
The Dutch label also plans to build more stores across the world. By 2015, a fleet of 750 G-Star stores will operate globally. Like the American stores, they will be franchise operations. On Feb. 17, the label also will unveil its first celebrity marketing campaign, which will focus on model and actor Liv Tyler. The campaign will debut a line Tyler co-designed called Low T.—Andrew Asch
