Exclusive men’s wear only stores

The Hermès men’s wear store in New York

As the biannual string of women’s wear shows shifts its axis from New York to London this weekend, a litany of predictably extreme outfits will filter on to the catwalk. And while the men’s wear shows have steadily shifted up the divorced-from-real-life scale with each new season, when it comes to the shops in which the clothes are sold, it’s a rather different story. Here practicality is key.

As the men’s wear market flourishes, luxury retailers have started to launch their men’s collections into boutiques of their own, differentiating their men’s wear offering from their women’s wear in both atmosphere and aesthetic.

Earlier this month, Hermès opened its first men’s store on New York’s Madison Avenue. It measures 2,450 sq ft and boasts an interior akin to a traditional tailor’s shop. Further along Madison Avenue, Ralph Lauren is planning to convert its Rhinelander Mansion flagship store later this year so that it caters purely for men’s clothing and accessories. Upmarket bag brand Coach will open a new men’s store in Bleecker Street in May.

Lanvin’s Savile Row store

Across the pond the patterns are similar: the Parisian luxury brand Lanvin closed its women’s wear store on London’s Bond Street in September 2008 and opened a men’s emporium in the celebrated tailoring district of Savile Row in the same month. Vivienne Westwood opens a new men’s boutique in Conduit Street in March, following the success of her Tokyo men’s-only outlet. And last year Louis Vuitton opened an exclusive men’s section in Harrods alongside the department store’s revamped men’s wear department, as well as a “men’s universe” in its own Singapore store.

For Hermès, the new male-oriented store is designed to offer everything under one roof. As Veronique Nichanian, the brand’s artistic director for men’s products, explains: “We had a desire to showcase the entire Hermès world for men, through clothes, shoes, bags and luggage.” According to Mike Tucci, president of Coach’s North American retail, their new men’s store is, “a laboratory where we can handpick pieces and pilot emerging collections.”

Needless to say, the motivation for these new single-sex outlets is not simply an altruistic desire to create a more welcoming environment for the shopaphobic male. Luxury brands see the new men’s stores as a way of tapping into a still under-exploited market. According to the market research company Euromonitor, even in mature luxury markets such as the US and the UK, sales of men’s designer clothing have risen at twice the rate of the women’s sector over the past five years, while the Far East men’s retail market is one of the strongest in the world. Whereas consumption of women’s luxury products in South Korea, for instance, increased by 7 per cent between 2005 and 2009, the figure for the men’s market was 48 per cent.

Max Reyner, insight editor at trend forecasters LS:N Global, says: “Men’s wear has not been as badly affected by the recession as women’s wear, so there is more potential here.” But men still need to be courted. “It’s about creating something like a den or gentleman’s club with dark wood and no funky music where they’ll feel comfortable about spending time ‘grazing’.”

Creating an exclusive and engaging male-only shopping environment is more likely to tempt men back into stores, rather than allowing them to rely on internet shopping. According to a PayPal survey, British men spent on average £672 more online than women in the first half of last year. Since 2006, an average of 839,000 extra men have started shopping online each year, compared with fewer than 400,000 women. The men’s clothing and accessories market has expanded, according to Christopher Colfer, chief executive of Dunhill, in part owing to the increase in the number of collections. Dunhill’s Mayfair store/gentleman’s club, Bourdon House, was opened in 2008 and offers men’s clothing, gadgets and leather goods plus a spa, barbershop and even a private screening room in the basement. The company is opening a similar “home”, as it calls them, in Hong Kong next month. Even during the slow economic recovery, the store is trading above expectations, Colfer claims. “But we’ve got a 130-year lease on the property so we’re taking a long-term view.”

Milton Pedraza, chief executive of research organisation the Luxury Institute, believes emporiums of masculine luxury, such as Bourdon House, are part of a broader trend in the luxury sector towards a focus on service. “These stores present an opportunity to deliver that excellent customer experience,” he says. Unlike women, says Pedraza, men don’t particularly enjoy shopping and so brands have to work harder to appeal to them. “Male luxury customers are used to service by experts such as their tailors.”