South Coast Plaza Captures a Gucci Store
Gucci, one of the biggest names in designer retailing, is finally coming to Orange County.
About 33 years after entering the U.S. market, Gucci Shops Inc. of New York is scheduled to open a full-line store at South Coast Plaza on Nov. 1--a prelude to the peak Christmas shopping season.
The flashy, high-fashion accessory store will be about half the size of Gucci’s Rodeo Drive shop but will carry virtually the same merchandise, from leather handbags to designer sunglasses.
Behind the move to Orange County is a recent corporate management shake-up that has pumped new, younger blood into the parent company, Guccio Gucci SPA of Florence, and its U.S. subsidiary. With seven company-owned stores in the United States, and 24 franchised operations, Gucci officials are anxious for new growth, according to Domenico DeSole, president of Gucci Shops.
The South Coast Plaza store will be company-owned, as will another Gucci store scheduled to open in Palm Springs, also in November. Gucci officials project the Costa Mesa store will post first-year sales of $3 million--about one-third the $10-million-plus in sales that Gucci’s Beverly Hills store recorded last year.
Gucci--best-known for the Double G logo that can be found on its products--has long coveted a South Coast Plaza location, DeSole said. Earlier this year, when Robert Phillips, a women’s apparel store, moved out of the Costa Mesa mall, “we saw our opportunity,” DeSole said.
For South Coast Plaza, the addition of Gucci represents a coup. South Coast Plaza is in the midst of a heated battle with Newport Beach’s Fashion Island for the well-to-do shopper. Both malls have begun extravagant, multimillion-dollar expansions over the past year, and both are aiming for the upscale customer. As a result, industry analysts say, Orange County residents are in store for some of the finest quality shopping in the world.
With the addition of Gucci, South Coast Plaza will have opened two so-called “destination” designer stores--where customers drive distances to shop--in the past year. Besides the planned Gucci opening, a Ralph Lauren Polo store opened there earlier this year.
At South Coast Plaza, “Gucci will be joining its peers,” said Maura Eggan, the mall’s marketing director. She cited Cartier, the designer jewelry store, as another example of a world-class tenant. “The market to support a store of Gucci’s caliber obviously exists here,” Eggan said.
“The Newport Beach customer is a real plum,” agreed Kathleen Lauren, marketing director at Fashion Island.
Fashion Island failed to attract Gucci but is pulling in other big-name retailers. Earlier this year, Amen Wardy, the exclusive women’s apparel store, opened at the center. And Fiorucci, the high-fashion sportswear store, is among the 25 new tenants that recently signed leases for Fashion Island’s newly constructed Atrium Court, Lauren said.
Surprisingly undaunted by Gucci’s plans to open a 4,000-square-foot store are some major South Coast Plaza merchants that now carry Gucci products. Bullock’s at South Coast Plaza, for example, has operated a “Gucci Boutique” for nearly a decade. The Gucci products--from $18 key rings to $250 purses--have “enormous appeal,” especially to customers 18 to 35, said Jack McCarley, Bullock’s Los Angeles-based vice president of corporate affairs.
McCarley said that Gucci sales at Bullock’s are up 25% this year compared to last year. He said a Gucci store in the mall will probably “increase customer awareness” of the product, and improve business.
Gucci, which totals about 500 workers at its company-owned stores, will employ 21 at the South Coast Plaza location. The company will begin hiring “within the next few months,” DeSole said.
So popular is Gucci that McGraw-Hill recently published the retailer’s 100-plus page “Gucci Catalog,” sold at bookstores for $5. The catalog advertises Gucci’s fall and winter lines.
