MAD DASH: Grana’s not tiptoeing, but sprinting into the new year with brick-and-mortar growth, a Tmall shop concept and a recently hired executive for the U.S. market.
The company recently tapped Ariella Werner-Seidler as U.S. experience director, where she’ll be charged with handling leasing and merchandising of the company’s physical spaces. She’s overseeing the rollout of the company’s New York pop-up — possibly in SoHo — that’s scheduled for an April opening.
The company in the second quarter has plans to open on Alibaba Group’s Tmall shopping platform. There are also plans for a physical pop-up showroom in Shanghai, slated for the second quarter. Grana remains tight-lipped on any other details about those plans.
The company’s dabbling in brick-and-mortar will not be akin to traditional retail and instead uses a showroom concept that allows visitors to try product on and place orders, with merchandise then shipped to the store or a customer’s home.
“We see [brick-and-mortar] as a really important short- to medium-term brand-building exercise to reach more people….For us, it’s not a core sales generator. It’s really just a supplementary way to acquire customers,” cofounder and chief executive officer Luke Grana told WWD in December.
The company this month began taking preorders for its
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