Toy store FAO Schwarz comes to Arnotts
WORLD-FAMOUS US toy store FAO Schwarz is to open a 6,000 sq ft shop in Dublin department store Arnotts.
The store, which featured in the movie Big starring Tom Hanks, will open in late October and is part of a strategy by Arnotts to create a family ‘destination’ in the city centre.
FAO Schwarz will be in the area and will be joined by another well-known US brand, Pottery Barn, which will bring its nursery range to Ireland for the first time. In total, the child-focused area will be 17,000 sq ft.
The Irish FAO Schwarz shop entails an investment of €1m and will employ 40 to 50, according to Donald McDonald, managing director of Brown Thomas Arnotts.
McDonald said Arnotts had entered into an exclusive partnership with FAO Schwarz and described it as a ‘huge coup’ for the Henry Street store. Arnotts will have a replica of the FAO clock tower, which will activate every hour and feature a toy train and soldiers.
It will also feature the giant piano seen in Big and have a Sharper Image section, which is a tech-based brand.
Other features include a doll adoption centre. Rather than interviews, ‘auditions’ will be held for staff, as is done in New York. “Everything that you have in New York will be recreated in Dublin. We’re talking about customer experience and engagement, people want to be interactive and engaged in the story of the brands,” McDonald said.
The store will sell giant plush toys with prices going up to €1,600, although the average spend is expected to be in the region of €40 to €50, with toys starting at €10.
McDonald said that Selfridges, which bought Arnotts in 2015, had always seen the shop as family-focused.
“We go back to 2015 when Selfridges took over, it was always our plan to understand the Arnotts customer and understand the business.
“We said it at the time, we were always committed to the family-friendly store that Arnotts was and the way it was always a destination for families — a day out.”
Asked if Arnotts was improving its offering in anticipation of new developments in the area such as the Clerys Quarter, Donald McDonald said that he welcomed more retail on the northside of the city.
“The more reason people have to come into Dublin city centre, the better. I am really looking forward to Clerys being live again and some activity going on there. I am not one bit concerned. Our footfall numbers are going up year-on-year,” he added.
“Our reality is not the reality that we have been reading in the papers about department stores. Ours is the opposite,” he told the Sunday Independent.
The flagship FAO Schwarz reopened in New York last November in the Rockerfeller Center having closed its flagship store in on Fifth Avenue three years ago.
A shop in Beijing is opening this week, while the Arnotts store will be the second one to be launched in Europe.
“The plan at the moment is to open seven to 10 flagship stores around the world,” McDonald said.
FAO Schwarz will also open in Selfridges in London, although McDonald said that agreement had been negotiated separately.