Marquee Brands’ acquisition of the British menswear brand Ben Sherman two years back has been extremely fruitful for the latter, as it is all set to re-enter the New York market. On September 1, Ben Sherman is going to open a store in SoHo, at the 130 Greene Street.
It will span over 2,000-square-feet and will have the entire Ben Sherman collection, from ready-to-wear ensembles and made-to-order suits to jewellery, footwear and many limited edition pieces. It will also hold monthly programs encompassing speaker series and dinners.
A full service shirt bar inspired by the brand’s history with its origins starting from Brighton, England in 1963 will also line the walls of this store to keep up the banner of being the young man’s “mod” take on shirts.
This store will exclusively harbour the entire Ben Sherman X House of Holland capsule collection in the entire US that includes unisex master pieces that came out of the collaboration with the British Designer Henry Holland. This collection was first showcased at the runway of London Collections Mens earlier this month.
The president of Marquee Brands, Michael DeVirgilio, stated that the brand is performing extremely well over the past year seeing the 29 percent increase in the sales of the company’s 44 retail stores in the past twelve months and a whopping 20 percent increase in sales in just the first quarter of this year. The business by the inherited licenses was upped by 18 percent while social media follow inf increased by 26 percent
The brand targets men between 25 to 40 years of age and is now operating in 34 countries, including the Philippines, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Canada, U.K, South Africa and California.
The acquisitive licensing and developing company, Marquee, purchased the brand for a hefty amount of US $ 63.7 million from Oxford Industries in July 2016. Ben Sherman was reportedly ignored by Oxford and after the acquisition, Marquee transformed the label into a licensed model with a promise of increasing the sales by quadruple in the next five years.
DeVirgilio also announced further expansion plans that start with the opening of two stores in Mexico and one in Panama by stating, “We have tremendous growth plans. We’re also making a big push into Latin America,” he said.
