Commando Enters the Retail Fray With First Pop- up Shop in SoHo
● The 2,200-square-foot store will remain through December.
Commando,
the South Burlington, Vt.based intimates and ready-to-wear brand, will officially open its first pop-up store at 75 Greene Street Thursday, featuring intimate apparel, ready-to-wear and denim.
The 2,200-square foot shop marks Commando's entry into freestanding retail.
“SoHo is going Commando! This feels like a homecoming for me, opening our first retail location just blocks from where I started Commando nearly 20 years ago. While I am a proud fourth-generation Vermonter, New York City has always been my second home in my heart,” said Kerry O'Brien, founder, chief executive officer and designer at Commando.
For the first time in its history, Commando's full-brand expression will be on display in one physical space.
“Women can finally experience firsthand the passion we have for fabric, the obsession we have for fit, and our dedication to creating pieces that she can rely on for comfort and confidence to be her badass self. Imagine opening up your closet and loving everything in it. That's what we want to create because you should only wear what you love,” said O'Brien.
The shop is located near Alexander McQueen, Ami, Loewe, Veronica Beard, Amiri and Patagonia stores.
Giving a tour of the new space,
O'Brien told WWD, “We don't grow for growth's sake. We have to find the right opportunities, and the right partners. For this, we were very discerning about how we wanted our first store to look like. We knew we wanted it be a pop-up because we are learning about our customer and interacting with her and we wanted it to be a location where we felt at home.”
She started the business on Wooster Street in New York in 2005, with the first seamless, elastic and trim-free undergarments. Throughout its nearly 20-year history, the brand has become a staple on red carpets and fashion runways and expanded into ready-to-wear in 2017.
According to O'Brien, the company's premise has always been, “You should only wear what you love.” Although she doesn't have a design background (rather, financial public relations), O'Brien said she knew how to ask the right questions and questioned the norms. For example, she'd asked, “Why does there need to be elastic in underwear? Why is it gripping into me? There's so much technology in fashion right now, and it's being applied to everything but intimate apparel. So I created the raw-cut thong. It has walked hundreds of red carpets and is a staple for New York Fashion Week and stylists and has been on covers of magazines. When you wear it there's no panty line, and it doesn't dig into you.”
For Commando, it's all about fabrics, and the store features faux leather, Neoprene and patent leather. O'Brien said the brand wants customers to understand why it has selected certain fabrics, most of which are European. “The design ethos is first, how does it feel, second is how does it fit, and the third is how does it look?”
While Commando started in intimates, the brand now does the majority of its sales in ready-to-wear.
At present, ready-to-wear accounts for between 60 and 70 percent of the volume, said Lori Wagner, chief marketing officer of Commando. Most of the RTW action is in faux leather and Neoprene (in pants, blazers, leggings, tops), and the brand's newly launched denim. At present, there are two styles of cotton and Lycra denim jeans (XS to XL) and the brand's bestselling leggings. For spring, Commando is adding denim shorts, blazers and a dress. In patent leather, for example, the store offers leggings, crop tops, skirts, trousers and blazers.
“When we find a fabric we love, we want to make as much as possible in different silhouettes, because the customer begins to know and appreciate the fabrics,” said
O'Brien. The company manufactures in the U.S., Peru and China, among other countries. Its fabrics include Neoprene, microfiber, faux lather, faux patent leather, denim, cotton, velvet and mesh.
During the pandemic, O'Brien introduced suiting, such as a double-breasted blazer in Neoprene. “My designers wanted to kill me and said ‘no one can leave their house.' They love it in leggings. She is not giving up comfort post-COVID[-19], but she's going to want to look snappy, put-together, stylish and comfortable. It's selling so great. It's washable,” she said.
Commando skirts come with built-in shapewear.
“A lot of women are shopping with their mothers and grandmothers,” she said. “The entry way for the brand is through faux leather, or intimates, and once she's in, she's in,” said Wagner.
Upon entering the store, customers can view several storytelling moments. Passing through a disco ball-adorned wall, customers will enter “The Ultimate
Closet,” a space filled with favorites, including leggings at The Leggings
Bar; bodysuits including Ballet Body and Butter; ready-to-wear including
Italian Neoprene CEO raw-cut suiting; Commando's patented no-slip slips (with small weights on the side); a full line of hosiery with a patented dig-free waistband, and three shapewear collections, along with the original raw-cut thong. There are two dressing rooms in the back.
Prices range from $24 for the original raw cut thong to $498 for an Italian Neoprene jacket.
“Leggings are one of our top-selling items,” said O'Brien, noting that they come in sizes XS to XL, along with 1X, 2X and 3X. “Bodysuits are a huge category for us, and in one rack, you can see the majority of our bodysuits, and we also have a Butter Bar, which has intimates, jumpsuits, ready-to-wear (Sizes XS to
XL) ….We merchandised it by how she might wear the items together,” she said. “What I love about Commando is I'm always so delighted to see how she'll style Commando. Sometimes she'll wear Commando head-to-toe, but it's fun to see how she mixes it up,” said O'Brien.
O'Brien couldn't predict sales per square foot for the shop. “We have no idea. We have never had the product side by side like this, on its own. This is an experiment for us. In the next four months, we're going to learn everything we can and take that forward,” she said.
In the future, Wagner said they'll consider cities such as Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston for retail stores. She noted that 50 percent of the company's business is directto-consumer and 50 percent is wholesale. Key wholesale accounts are Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue, Net-a-porter, and Selfridges, as well as many small specialty stores.
The Commando pop-up will also serve as a space for discovery, community dialogue, events and collaboration with like-minded partners. The pop-up will be open through December.