British clothier scales new heights, opening first U.S. store in Portland
PHOTO CREDIT / LORI VALIGRA
Steve Berry, head of international, and Tricia Kidwell, Portland store manager, in front of the soon-to-be opened Fat Face clothing store on Exchange Street. The location is the British company's first in the United States and will be followed shortly by a store north of Boston.
British clothier Fat Face, named after the famous Le Face ski run in the French Alps, plans to open its first U.S. location at 34 Exchange St. in Portland on Feb. 20.
A second store will open in greater Boston on Feb. 27, Steve Berry, head of international for the company, told Mainebiz.
The Portland location also is the company’s first location outside of the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it has more than 200 stores. Plans call for up to 10 locations on the East Coast in the next two years, including the second store at MarketStreet Lynnfield near Boston.
“We started looking at where we’d go next about three years ago, including America, Canada and other European countries,” Berry said. He added that managers from the company drove from Cape Cod to Maine and traveled through Canada and to San Francisco before settling on the Portland location, which is closer to the United Kingdom than the West Coast.
“We saw hundreds of places, but we fell in love with Portland,” he said. “We traveled in all of the different seasons. The people are friendly and there’s an active foodie and craft beer scene.”
He said community feel also was important.
“Each time we walked back along Fore Street towards our hotel, we loved how the gelato shops were often the busiest places,” he said. “To us, it meant people were enjoying themselves and having fun.”
The store is in a 1,780-square-foot space formerly occupied by J.L. Coombs Footwear/Apparel. CBRE | The Boulos Co. represented Fat Face in getting the lease.
In a tour of the store, which is still undergoing renovations, Berry pointed to the original mosaic tiles on the floor and the tiled logo of the Portland Board of Trade, which at one time occupied the building. He said he wanted to keep his restoration close to the store’s original character. The plastered walls and partitions have been taken down, and the original brick walls exposed.
Fat Face also worked with Portland Architectural Salvage to get period wood to cover an entry wall where it will have clothes on hangers. The company also got the nod from the city’s preservation program to open up the back of the location, which had been boarded over, to expose three tall windows that match the ones at the front of the store.
Berry said Fat Face sells quality lifestyle clothing at a good price. The average purchase is $60, and the typical customers are in the 30s, though the store does sell children’s clothing.
“There’s a phrase we use in the UK: ‘For life outside the 9-5,’” said Heather Leary, marketing manager for the UK company, which was founded in 1988. “We don’t live to work.”
The store will initially have two full-time and four part-time staffers, all hired locally, said Tricia Kidwell, the Portland store manager.
“Our winter hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” she said. “In the summer they will be longer and we’ll probably hire three more people.”
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