Three weeks to create a luxury shopping experience? That was the challenge The Elder Statesman founder Greg Chait faced when a golden opportunity dropped into his lap less than a month ago: an Upper East Side town house that previously served as Chrome Hearts’s New York flagship (that label having taken a minority stake in Chait’s line last spring).
The uptown locale might come as something of a surprise, initially at least, given The Elder Statesman’s laid-back kind of cool; consider the unfussy, decidedly West Coast charms of the brand’s bungalowlike shop in Los Angeles. But step into the store on East 64th Street and it’s clear that it’s a winning fit—an airy space with brick floors, whitewashed walls, stained-glass windows, and a sun-flooded courtyard. “I’ve always wanted to be uptown,” Chait says. And besides, as he tells it, “nobody would think that 10-pound cashmere blankets were going to be coming out of Venice Beach when I first started!”
The “winter shop” had its soft opening this past weekend. Of conjuring up his East Coast retail experience, Chait was contemplative: “I liked the short turnaround because it cut out all the noise. We were like, ‘We need this, this, and this, let’s focus all our energy on these components.’” The New York store was informed equally by the L.A. flagship and the designer’s time spent trekking the globe with his wares, showing them to buyers and editors. “I’ve shown it in every possible space,” he says, “from industrial, to retail stores, to the best suites in the world, to . . . not the best suites in the world—crazy amounts of places. This was kind of a hybrid. It feels like pretty much what we would do if it were permanent.” And indeed, while the shop is sure to be open through the end of February, there’s a chance Chait and co. may stay on in the space. As it turns out, uptown suits him.
The Elder Statesman Winter Shop, 159 East 64th Street, New York City
The post The Elder Statesman Takes New York With a Gorgeous Shop on the UES appeared first on Vogue.