After staking its claim in Paris with the opening of two new stores earlier this year, Salomon has finally landed stateside with its first physical outpost dedicated to its Sportstyle collection.
Indeed, the Amer Sports-owned brand, will open a new pop-up at 169 Spring Street in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City for its Sportstyle collection on Oct. 2. The new store will highlight a curated assortment of footwear, including signature styles like ACS, Speedcross 3, and the highly sought after XT-6. Also highlighted will be the sleek winter boot called the Snowclog.
This new store joins the brand’s other locations in London, Barcelona, Seoul, Tokyo and beyond, including the Salomon flagship store on the Champs-Élysées and a Sportstyle concept store in Le Marais in Paris.
And according to Steve Doolan, president of the Americas for Salomon, this New York City pop-up will serve as a test in the U.S. as the brand plans to expand to five physical stores in 2025, beginning with a permanent space in New York City.
“We currently have the lease until the end of January, but we are talking with the landlord about what it would look like to extend,” Doolan told FN in an exclusive interview ahead of Wednesday’s opening. “It is feasible that we would, and then beyond that, we certainly have aspirations to grow a larger retail footprint here in the near future.”
The executive added that he is currently looking at spaces in NYC’s Flatiron neighborhood for what could be a store that showcases the wide breadth of Salomon’s footwear offering – including trail running, road running and other performance categories – like its recently opened Champs-Élysées flagship in Paris.
“Flatiron is one of those neighborhoods that we think is really symbiotic in terms of where our consumer shops and where a full brand store could live, whereas SoHo is much more of a cultural and fashion hub where our Sportstyle line makes more sense to showcase,” the executive said.
Doolan, who joined Salomon in Sept. 2023 from Deckers Brands’ star running label Hoka, also noted that the NYC pop-up technically isn’t the brand’s first physical store in the U.S.
“We actually have a factory outlet that’s connected to one of our buildings in Utah,” he said. “You would find more performance driven products there and not so much from our Sportstyle line.”
In the past, the brand also operated stores in Colorado, Utah and Vancouver. “But now, we are much more focused on what a longer-term strategy for U.S. retail looks like,” Doolan said.
And while this opening signals a larger focus on owned retail going forward, Doolan is still laser focused on the brand’s wholesale business.
“I’m a big believer in an ecosystem that balances healthy wholesale partners, e-commerce and our own stores,” the executive said. “I think when we do it right, which is ultimately about controlling distribution and finding the partners that truly do a meaningful job of connecting with their consumers, then we are doing the best that we can to resonate in the market. When you put stores in the right places and you have a really good balance of healthy wholesale partners, it really is an instrumental component of business.”
This opening comes after Salomon owner Amer Sports raised $1.37 billion in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange earlier this year.
In August, Amer Sports raised its guidance for 2024 after posting Q2 sales and earnings results that beat its expectations. The Finnish company which also owns the Arc’Teryx, Wilson, Peak Performance and Atomic brands, reported a 16 percent increase in sales in the second quarter to $994 million. The outdoor performance segment, which includes the company’s Salomon brand, saw revenues grow 11 percent to $304 million in the period.
