Armando Cabral’s New Retail Vision Comes to Life in Rockefeller Center
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Armando Cabral is ready for his next adventure, opening the doors to his freshly relocated NYC store earlier this month.
The new shop, located at 620 Fifth Ave. in the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center, is just down the street from his previous store at 70 West 50th St., which closed in December.
According to the model-turned-footwear designer, the new store offers a space with a juxtaposition of materials, with organic inspirations from Cabral’s African heritage mixed with the structure of custom USM-designed pieces for a unique and colorful ambiance.
“While this new space is a bit smaller than our previous store, it provides a more focused boutique-like area to showcase the full range of the Armando Cabral brand,” Cabral told FN in an interview. “The shopping experience is also more personal. Our team of expert stylists is on hand to ensure the right fit and mix of pieces. Plus, now I’m right next door to Todd Snyder’s store – a close friend of mine.”
This new store also marks a departure from Cabral’s previous store concept – Armando Cabral Mercado – which featured his product alongside a curation of African-based brands, fine art and design. With this new location, Cabral will instead focus solely on his growing range of product categories including footwear, apparel and fine fragrance.
But this doesn’t mean the end of the Mercado concept store. “We intend to use the Mercado store format when we pop-up in different cities to sort of test out the market,” he said.
One of these markets being in Portugal, where Cabral grew up. “I’d love to reopen my store in Lisbon at some point, but the real estate is sort of like New York now, where you have to be put on a waiting list for all of the more desirable neighborhoods,” he said. “But, when I do open there, it will be the Mercado format.”
Cabral added that the new shop is all part of his brand’s evolution that took place in 2023. Last year, the entrepreneur outlined several additions to his offering including extended sizes in his footwear, a fragrance in collaboration with D.S. & Durga and a range of made-in-Portugal shirts produced in partnership with menswear designer Todd Snyder.
The assortment is set to grow once more, Cabral hinted. “We will be launching into more home products with a special collaboration in the fall,” he teased.
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