NEW YORK CITY – Amid ongoing retail
turbulence that this year alone has seen
legacy brands like Sears and Toys R Us
close the majority of their locations, open-
ing a splashy flagship store at a sought-after
address can feel like an almost countercul-
tural gesture. But Nike has just done it for
the second time in two months.
The brand’s new House of Innova -
tion 000 on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan is
a five-storey paean to frictionless commerce.
It’s also, by virtue of its numbering, a prequel
of sorts to the equally ambitious House of
Innovation 001 in Shanghai’s Nanjing East
Road district, which launched in October.
What can a store still offer today’s
omni-spoiled, multi-screening consumer?
‘The pleasure of physically being some-
where’, to quote a certain newspaper ofRETAIL
Reimagining retail:
Nike’s House of
Innovation shows
that the lure of big
data shouldn’t mean
the loss of theatre
Nike’s Sneaker Lab lets trainer
obsessives deep dive into the latest
in performance footwear innovation.110 SPACES