CREATIVITY
SOREL celebrated the 50th anniversary of its iconic Caribou silhouette with the opening of its first pop-up in New York City. Located in the Williamsburg shopping district of Brooklyn, N.Y., the 950 sq. ft. store was aglow on the interior--walls, floors, and ceiling--and exterior with the brand’s signature colorway, Optimized Orange. Throughout the interior was a full orange saturation with custom display fixtures and customizable lighting that included orange glow windows. The use of color-blocked orange throughout the pop-up gave a vibrancy to the space and created a bold, energetic environment along with corrugated metal, orange strapping, rubber toppers, and floor-to-ceiling paint.

INNOVATION
Passersby could see holistically every touchpoint in the pop-up. The interactive AR Experience Mirror. The Brand Heritage Wall. The Customization Station. The low-slung try-on area. The 3D artist's interpretation of the polar bear logo. The latest Sorel footwear. No one section was dominant, creating a beautiful symmetry of elements.

FUNCTIONALITY
SOREL's mural takeover featured its larger-than-life polar bear logo walking across the orange brick exterior toward the entrance--drawing people walking by into the store. Just inside the doors, an augmented reality experience allowed consumers to interact and engage with key styles under different weather conditions. The walls were a collage of vintage SOREL ads combined with new campaign imagery to celebrate the breadth of the brand’s heritage. The product itself was a key inspiration for how the merchandise is displayed. The fixture designs with a wavy kinetic motif were a nod to the iconic SOREL styles. At the back was a try-on area and a charm and lace bar where shoppers could customize their boot purchases.

SUSTAINABILITY
Very few properties in Williamsburg are white-box, move-in ready, and activating any space in Q4 for a short time can be highly competitive. Though this structure needed an immense amount of work, it did offer great window frontage, strong visibility, good adjacencies, and a unique brand statement --with an address on 6th Street that spoke for itself. Once the design team was convinced that this was the location they wanted, they vetted opportunities with their strategic counterparts who were able to determine that what needed to be done was possible with the time and budget allowed.

Even though the property was covered with graffiti and slated to be torn down, permissions for the exterior mural takeover as well as the removal of interior walls and optimization of flooring proved difficult. Great care was taken to work closely with all the stakeholders to create and deliver this one-of-a-kind pop-up experience. By the time the pop-up wrapped up, in fact, several brands were interested in becoming long-term tenants. Rather than being razed, the building is now highly coveted by retailers and a destination in the neighborhood.