Samsonite In The Black
Samsonite takes its new premium retail concept across the globe.
Susan H. Fishman

Inside the Samsonite Black Label store in New York City.

Samsonite, the worldwide leader in travel accessories, has been in business since 1910 and continues to expand globally with new product categories and consumer targets. The company has opened 49 of its newest and premium concept, Samsonite Black Label, in major cities across the globe and has plans to take the brand even further.

The exclusive Samsonite Black Label brand typifies affluence, with refined style and craftsmanship.

“It’s aimed at the consumer we would call the ‘world globetrotter,’” notes Chief Retail Officer Shawn Cox. “There are very few brand names that have global recognition in the mind of the end consumer and end up giving off a lot of positive brand attributes, including security, strength and durability. Samsonite Black Label has the combination of those elements with a very unique design and innovation in the product.”

Samsonite recently launched a series of flagship stand-alone Black Label stores and branded shop-in-shops in luxury department stores in key markets throughout the world. Black Label stores can be found in fashion capitals such as London (Sloane Street and Royal Exchange), Berlin (Friedrichstrasse), Brussels (Boulevard de Waterloo), Moscow (GUM), Seoul (Cheong Dam-Dong), Singapore (Raffles Hotel), Kuwait City, Mumbai (Grand Hyatt), New York (Madison Avenue), San Francisco (Union Square), Boston (Copley Place) and Tokyo (Ginza).

Samsonite’s Black Label store on Madison Avenue in New York.

Samsonite’s visionary direction and emphasis on a more influential, premium market is the inspiration of CEO Marcello Bottoli and Creative Director Quentin Mackay. The partners are dedicated to achieving the single-minded goal of building Samsonite Black Label into an iconic premium brand. The new brand offers a portfolio of lifestyle products all geared toward travel, but much more than just luggage — everything from business products to weekend bags, shoes, small leather goods and belts.

The company’s other full-price concept, Classic Original, offers a lot of the products you might find traditionally in Samsonite’s department store segment in the U.S. (in stores like Macy’s). One notch below Black Label, Classic Original stores can be found in the same formats. Samsonite also has a few airport, duty-free locations, which will be a big focus for the company in the future.

The Samsonite Black Label stores, which average around 1,000 square feet, have been designed by one of today’s most creative architectural agencies — Guillot + architects (G+a). The design director for the project is internationally renowned French architect, Nicolas Guillot. The store design reflects a luxurious and futuristic image, while also incorporating the exclusive location and local influence within each market. The stores are fairly monochromatic, incorporating a lot of black with accents of white fixturing, depending on the location, and accent lights that focus specifically on the product.

“In terms of the color and overall aesthetic, I think we wanted to draw a tremendous amount of attention to the product,” says Cox. “We try to incorporate a lot of the exclusive design elements within each one of the locations that we have within each one of the markets globally.”

With 49 Black Label locations and 112 Classic locations, Samsonite also operates factory outlets globally. “We have a good number of those, but our primary focus in the U.S. is continuing to roll out the Black Label concept, notes Cox.

The Samsonite Black Label store at San Francisco’s Union Square.

There are six existing Black Label locations in the U.S., including Madison Avenue, Copley Place in Boston, Union Square in San Francisco, Short Hills in New Jersey, Cherry Creek in Denver and Woodfield Mall outside of Chicago. The company hopes to open at least another eight to nine Black Label stores by the Christmas season. Those locations will be in the Dallas Galleria, Chestnut Hills in Newton,  Massachusetts, Rockingham, Massachusetts (outside Boston), Fashion Show in Las Vegas, Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey, and Valley Fair in Santa Clara, just outside of San Francisco. The company is also planning to open its first Canadian location in Toronto or Vancouver.

As the company looks forward, Cox says Samsonite could comfortably have a minimum of 50 Black Label locations within the U.S. and Canada in the next three years.

“Per annum, there’s not a giant push in terms of opening stores to realize a top or bottom line,” he says. “I think we’re in a fairly comfortable situation by where we can assess each one of the locations we decide to go into with a fairly strict set of criteria.”

With the kind of sharp criteria Samsonite is working with now, such as having the right end consumer, the right kind of mall and a good location within that mall, Cox says the company could reach as many as 15 to 20 locations per annum over the next few years.