On June 17, 2022, The Hong Kong-based guide to all things streetwear, Hypebeast, opens its first retail space, housing two floors of streetwear brands and high-end labels, located in the Chinatown neighborhood of lower Manhattan. The modular retail space curates a collection of stand-out streetwear brands, all merchandised by Erin Kiona Thompson, Global Director of Buying and Merchandising for Hypebeast’s HBX e-commerce platform and retail store.
With a launch party happening just two days before its opening at 41 Division street, social influencers, fashion insiders, and guests of all kinds were invited to experience the new retail and event space. A place for the fashion community to come together, from the ground floor to the seventh floor and rooftop, designed to inspire and cultivate. Guests got to experience the entire floorplan, from the courtyard on the first floor, housing a cafe, sneaker display, and a Coinbase vending machine that delivers redeemable tickets for digital prizes.
The clothing filled the racks guided guests through the store, and without a mannequin in sight – artfully displayed selected pieces of clothing were on metal installations with cinder block foundations. In the front window of the HBX store, a percussionist band played Jazz-like notes while the roof spun contemporary music that was the background to a 360 view of New York City.
Brands like Brain Dead, Stone Island, OAMC, and Reese Cooper, blend on the racks with luxury labels like Jil Sanders, 1017 Alyx 9SM, Thom Browne, and JW Anderson. What is created as the Hypebeast ecosystem, the seven-floor building complex is the US hub for streetwear culture and community connection. This cultural ecosystem will house two floors of retail space that includes discrete points of sale, and a subtlely frosted wall design that hides fitting rooms with a private client room. Racks and shelves can shift through the retail space, designed specifically for its location at 41 Division Street in Chinatown, NY.
Between the public spaces for fellow ‘hypebeasts’ and shoppers are where the new offices for Hypbeast US business and communications will operate. HBX is the heart of the ecosystem that Hypebeast has cultivated and curated in its time as an internet guide for streetwear. As the guests were introduced to the new HBX store – in real life – and met other fashion enthusiasts from the downtown scene of New York City, an inconspicuous Kevin Ma, founder of Hypebeast, cleverly blended into the crowd of streetwear dandies, with a most gracious persona that reflects the effortlessly cool, in an HBX launch collection tee.
With the newly minted HBX store in place, Hypebeast further solidifies itself as the streetwear hub for the generation of sneakerheads, nostalgic sartorialists, and future fashion aficionados to come into a space designed to shift with the trends. The modular retail space is not only catering to fashion, it harbors a lifestyle, most importantly, community. Hypebeast, HBX, and the Hypebeans cafe are welcoming safe spaces for this sartorial culture to develop their own style of expression.
