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Shinola's retail network, which began 17 months ago with the flagship store on Canfield Street in Midtown Detroit, has spread to Tribeca in Manhattan, the North Loop of Minneapolis and now an upscale part of Washington, D.C.
The seller of watches, leather goods and other items on Monday opened "a holiday pop-up shop on the gentrified corridor of 14th Street in Northwest Washington," as the Washington Post puts it. "Early next year, a permanent Washington store will open nearby."
Upcoming locations also include Chicago, Los Angeles and London, according to the company.
The Logan Circle pop-up site is near the location of a larger store opening next year. The area on area 14th Street NW is "really appealing," CEO Steve Bock says. (Shinola photo)
Here's some of what Washington Business Journal reporter Rebecca Cooper writes Wednesday about the preliminary spot there:
A store three times its size -- approximately 4,500 square feet -- will open sometime next year at 14th and R streets NW. . . .
"After we opened up Detroit and Tribeca in New York, D.C. became the next target," Shinola CEO Steve Bock told me at an event to preview the brand Tuesday night. "It's always the question of finding the right location."
While Bock said that the brand's appeal has been across the board — from older, more established, luxury watch buyers to a younger generation interested in handcrafted, aspirational brands — the company's choice of 14th St. NW over, say, Georgetown, is telling about who it's trying to target.
"Georgetown's fantastic. Who wouldn't want to be in Georgetown?" Bock said. "But 14th Street was really appealing because we felt that this is the kind of destination, which, in its infancy, Shinola should be looking for."
The Logan Circle shop's freshly minted Facebook page awaits discovery. Shinola community manager Brian Ambrozy is one of its two "likers" as of mid-afternoon Wednesday.
