First Look: Nordstrom NYC Flagship
On Thursday, Nordstrom will open its 320,000-square-foot women's store in Manhattan, at West 57th Street and Broadway, a year and a half after the department store retailer opened the doors to a 47,000-square-foot Nordstrom Men's Store NYC across the street.
The long awaited seven-story flagship will boast seven places to eat and be packed with retail services and experiences. According to the retailer, it will “represent the biggest and best statement of the brand, and largest single-project investment in Nordstrom history.”
The store itself, designed in collaboration with James Carpenter Design Associates, sits in the base of the “tallest residential building in the Western Hemisphere,” and features a waveforms glass façade. Without boxed-in windows, the entire store is a display window to the street, while providing an interactive viewing experience for customers inside.
Chain-mail veils and lighting effects allow the store to reflect the seasons and create changing moods to celebrate special events, while 19-foot ceilings and an open, flexible floor plan allows for layout evolution as customers’ tastes change.
The merchandise inside includes clothing, accessories, shoes, beauty, children’s and home categories. In the kids' shoe department, a fun conveyor belt will deliver children’s picks to them. To create a “sense of discovery" throughout the store, shoppers will find a plethora of merchandise concepts and shops, such as the limited-time Burberry Concept Shop, complete with exclusive styles and refreshments. Pop-In@Nordstrom, an ongoing series of shops built around themes or collaborations, will launch featuring Everlane.
Among the seven food options for shoppers is Shoe Bar, a cocktail bar located in the center of the shoe floor.
“What’s great is we have a team of bartenders that are not only going to be working at the shoe bar, but they’re going to be out on the floor so customers will be able to order a drink or food in any location,” Rickey Osorio-Pizarro, retail director of shoes, told Footwear News. “It’s the first time we’ve done anything like it at Nordstrom.”
Some of the store’s other unique services include a blending of the physical and digital, such as its 24/7 online order pick-up in store and self-serve “express returns” kiosks. It offers same-day delivery to select ZIP codes. Its alterations service includes online appointment booking and one-hour hems. The new Stylist Lounge serves up a dedicated space to meet with experts and appointments can also be booked online.
Additional services range from connected fitting rooms and cell phone charging to free WiFi, gift wrapping and donation drop-off.
The store’s immersive, interactive beauty floor features retail services such as Drybar, for blowouts, Heyday for facials, FaceGym for facial sculpting muscle-manipulation techniques, Anastasia Beverly Hills for brow shaping, Nordstrom Spa Body Services, and more.
Additionally, emerging artists were commissioned to create 54 original pieces to enhance the shopping experience throughout and the Art@Nordstrom app will provide customers with an audio-guided tour of the store’s collection.
Below, we take you on a tour throughout the store.
