Carol Lim and Humberto Leon
With new owners, New Guards Group, Opening Ceremony plans to close all its retail locations sometime in 2020.
In a letter that Carol Lim and Humberto Leon, cofounders of Opening Ceremony, sent to the media community and friends Tuesday, they said that they made that decision “to focus on growing the Opening Ceremony collection and brand with our new partners New Guards Group, and expand the designs of Opening Ceremony.”
Opening Ceremony has multibranded stores at 35 Howard Street and the Ace Hotel in New York, on N. La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, and in Tokyo. The stores feature emerging and established international women’s and men’s fashion and accessories designers, art installations, exclusive products and essentials from Lim and Leon’s international adventures.
“Our stores in New York, Los Angeles, London and Tokyo have connected people from around the world together and brought so much joy into our lives and to the lives of those who have come through our doors,” said the cofounders in their letter. The first store opened on Howard Street in 2002.
The cofounders said that with their new partners, they plan to re-evaluate the future of the Opening Ceremony retail experience. “We are stepping back from multibrand retail for a moment, so we can come back with an experience that is just as inspiring, filled with love and relevant for the years ahead as Opening Ceremony has been,” they wrote.
The two partners said they plan to return to creating stores “but with a different mind-set and perspective in order to wow people are who self-proclaimed shop-til-we-drops like us.”
New Guards Group, which has the license for Off-White and is also responsible for Palm Angels and Heron Preston, was acquired by Farfetch for $675 million last August. On Monday, it was reported that New Guards Group acquired Opening Ceremony’s trademark and intellectual property.
For more stories:
Opening Ceremony Sold to New Guards Group
The Transformation of Farfetch
Opening Ceremony, Russell Westbrook, Jordan Release First Capsule
Farfetch Investors Caught Off Guard by New Guards Deal
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