P.Diddy Rolls Out The Retail Carpet
Music icon starts retail stores to boost sales of clothing line.

Retail stores have always been in the game plan for music icon and producer Sean Combs (otherwise known as “P. Diddy” or “Puffy”). He just needed to find the right time to launch his own freestanding locations.

Combs made his fashion debut with a men’s sportswear collection for the spring 1999 season and has a contemporary line of men’s sportswear, which is sold in specialty department stores and select retailers around the world. Now, the tireless entrepreneur is stepping out in the retail world with his new retail location, Sean John 5th Avenue, located on Fifth Avenue and 41st Street off Bryant Park, which is home to Fashion Week in New York City. Los Angeles-based investment firm Yucaipa Cos. LLC’s Ron Burkle has invested $100 million in the Sean John clothing line, which according to the New York Post, grossed about $300 million last year in sales. Aside from his duties as music producer, rapper and prince of parties, P. Diddy will continue as chairman and chief executive of Sean John.

“Puffy is a pioneer,” says Charles Soriano, vice president of retail for Sean John. “We chose the space because it’s really uncharted territory. It’s a hodgepodge of retailers, and we really wanted to be trailblazers in the area to bring other retailers into that corridor. And from a financial perspective, the rents per square foot are much lower, versus 10 blocks farther up Fifth Avenue.”

The new Sean John store is 3,500 square feet of ground floor space. The original concept derived from seeing pictures of Puffy’s closets at home on Park Avenue.

“They were organized, cozy and displayed the kind of lifestyle that Puffy wants for his own customer,” says Greg Anderson of InSite Development, whose company was hired to put together the design concept and project manage the retail launch.

“InSite offers soup-to-nuts services, from environmental branding all the way to buildout and even post construction,” says Soriano. “Because my team is very small, we needed someone with the leverage and experience to get our product to market in the shortest time possible.”

What’s different for Combs is not only the new Sean John store itself, but the product offering, which is geared to a more upscale audience, as well as existing customers. The store is a series of closet showcases to differentiate categories that include men’s clothing, men’s accessories, sunglasses, small leather goods, fragrance, grooming products, an exclusive line of home décor, and accessories and jewelry designed by Jacob the Jeweler.

“The store is really the next step in building Sean Combs’ global lifestyle brand,” notes Soriano.

“Part of the store’s goal is to make this transition between just being an urban hip-hop apparel company to being more of a competitor of other upscale stores,” says Anderson. “It’s still very open and inviting to the old customer but will connect with the new customer.”

The store design is sexy, luxurious, monochromatic and finely detailed with things that Puffy himself likes. There is a hidden VIP room with a discreet entrance off 41st Street for Puffy’s many celebrity clients, where they are welcomed with oversized crocodile seating, floor-to-ceiling leather starfish skin wallpaper, a full array of tech toys, Puffy’s favorite movies and a hidden wet bar filled with champagne. The main interior finish is Ebonized South African Zebra wood, nickel metal finish, bronze and frosted glass walls, lightly veined travertine floors, leather wall panels and smoky bronze acrylic panels.

“The design direction of the exterior was not just to create a statement but to capture the timelessness of its neighboring architecture, most notably the New York Public Library and Grand Central,” says Anderson. “We paid particular attention to the colors and material finish so as not to be intimidating to new and existing customers, but still connect with upper Fifth Avenue retailers.”

From the first Sean John store, the company will develop a street prototype. Sean John will open its second store in Beverly Center in Los Angeles in April 2005, from which it will roll out a mall prototype.

“Between those two prototypes, we’ll be able to develop a scalable business model in which we’ll be able to roll out a number of stores late next year,” says Soriano.

Sean John is actively looking at A malls and A streets up and down the East Coast, from D.C. to Atlanta to Miami. On the West Coast, the store will be opening in Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the company won’t be looking for any of the larger box stores.

“We’re very focused on working our construction buildout back into a pro forma where we actually make money,” says Anderson. “Our goal is not to take on larger real estate and do an explosive growth roll-out, but to strike when the opportunity arises.”

“We’re focused on productivity per square foot,” adds Soriano. “And we’ve designed the store, the buildout and the financial plan so that we’re ramping up to profitability within a shorter time frame than most other retailers.”

— Susan H. Fishman