EXCLUSIVE: Jeffrey Is Expanding Into California

Luxury fashion retailer Jeffrey is coming to Silicon Valley.Founder Jeffrey Kalinsky plans to open a new 12,000-square-foot location — only his third in 28 years of operation — at the Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, Calif.The target opening date is Aug. 2, Kalinsky’s birthday. (He’ll turn 56.)He christened his two other branches on the same personally meaningful date. He founded Jeffrey in Atlanta’s Phipps Plaza in 1990, and in 1999 Kalinsky planted a flagship on West 14th Street in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.“This is a really good time in bricks-and-mortar retail for specialty stores,” he said, disclosing the expansion move exclusively to WWD. “In the designer realm, I think specialty stores are in a very unique position right now to do really well…With the type of goods that we sell, customers still need and want that personal contact.”He noted that luxury enthusiasts shop all over the world, including close to home: “They will buy if someone is doing a good job and not watering down the offer. People shop with us because we try to give them the best of the best of every season.”Scanning top U.S. cities for his next location, Kalinsky spied potential for his fashion-forward mix of brands in Palo Alto, estimating that 90 percent of his ready-to-wear offer will be new to the city. For women, the selection includes Balenciaga, Céline, Prada, Miu Miu, Comme des Garçons, Junya Watanabe, Thom Browne and Greg Lauren. For men, he plans to stock collections including Gucci, Balenciaga, Dior Homme, Sacai, John Elliott and Off-White.“I wanted to open somewhere where I felt the market didn’t have anyone doing what we do,” he said in an interview.As with other Jeffrey units, assortments will span shoes, bags and fine jewelry — plus of-the-moment labels like Undercover and Halpern.“If we love it, we buy it for all stores,” he said. “It’s going to have a very beautiful, robust offering of fashion.”The California unit is to resemble other Jeffrey locations, with their “Jetsons meets art gallery” backdrop of clean, white modernism. Palo Alto will span about 9,000 square feet of selling space on one level versus about 10,000 square feet in New York, with men’s wear representing about a quarter of assortments initially, Kalinsky said.The executive also revealed plans to enlarge his original Atlanta store, which added men’s rtw last year, by annexing a neighboring space and giving all categories “room to breathe” across about 9,500 square feet of selling space. Renovations are slated for completion in September.Phipps Plaza and Stanford Shopping Center are both operated by Simon Property Group, which Kalinsky touted as a “good landlord, supporter and partner.”It’s a busy time for Kalinsky, who is also vice president, designer fashion director, at Nordstrom, which is opening its first Manhattan location, a men’s unit, in a couple of weeks. (Nordstrom purchased a majority stake in Jeffrey in 2005.)Kalinsky cut his teeth in retail at Bob Ellis, the shoe business founded by his father, Morris. It closed at the end of 2016.