In This Article:
Beyond Yoga is stepping out, cutting the ribbon on a bigger store concept in Greenwich, Conn., on Friday and preparing an assortment that really lives up to its name.
It’s Beyond Yoga’s first brick-and-mortar store on the East Coast and a big moment for the brand, which Levi Strauss & Co. bought in 2021 and which is now being prepped for a growth spurt that would put it into direct competition with Lululemon and Athleta at scale.
More from WWD
Leading the way is Nancy Green, who oversaw Athleta as it grew from 39 to 175 stores and has been putting that experience to work since becoming Beyond Yoga’s chief executive officer last year.
Green has been using her own particular blend of art and science to set the brand up for its next step. The arrival in Greenwich, for instance, is no accident. The company knows from its e-commerce business that the greater New York area is its largest market and used that data to guide it to the wealthy enclave.
“There’s a big intuitive piece to this too,” Green told WWD. “There’s the data on where the bulk of our customer fans are currently, and then there’s intuition. Does that make sense? Does that feel right? Because you can go into a market and there’s multiple places you could open. We’re opening in Boston [this year] and we can see where that customer bubble is in the Boston area. And there’s multiple choices where we could go. We’re going to Seaport because we stand there, we watch, we see our customer walking the streets.
“The other piece that’s important is, Does the space feel right? That’s also intuitive,” she said. “Maybe it’s not the right location or you need to wait for the right location. We’re not going to go in just because the data shows us that that’s probably where we should be.”
Both sides of Green’s brain aligned on the Greenwich store, a 2,760-foot-space that also has room to hold events and tap into that “wellness-forward lifestyle” customer the brand targets.
“It’s gorgeous,” Green said. “Light oak floors, very natural elements and a lot of wood, a lot of very organic shapes, curves. The main reason for the larger format is that the line is expanding quite a bit. We needed a larger space to showcase the breadth of the assortment and to really just show the best expression of the brand. We’re also [planning to use] these new spaces as community hubs, whether it’s fitness events that we do in the store, community events, whatever is right for that store. We create very strong local partnerships with various studios.”