Citizen Watch Co. is making a big statement on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
The group is opening its first multibrand flagship in the U.S., at 605 Fifth Avenue, just steps away from Rockefeller Center, sharing the avenue with fellow watch brands Tag Heuer, Cartier, Rolex, Omega, Hublot, and Breguet.
The new multibrand shop will have timepiece offerings across the group’s portfolio of brands, which include Citizen, Bulova, Accutron, Frederique Constant, and Alpina.
“Our North American headquarters is located in one of the most iconic buildings down the block on Fifth Avenue in the Empire State Building, so we felt it was the right opportunity for us to position the first U.S. multibrand store on the same street,” said Jeffrey Cohen, president of Citizen Watch America.
“The citizens across the globe in New York City truly capture the inclusive, worldwide view of the company, and you know, being right there and Rock Center, we feel the footfall that’s there and the wide demographic and psychographic that walks past that store will be exactly who we want to serve. And that’s really the emphasis of Citizen — meeting and serving all the people all the time, the best way we can,” added Cohen.
Designed by architect Ken Park and his New York-based firm Kenneth Park Architects, the 7,000-square-foot, three-floor space offers an immersive shopping experience incorporating state-of-the art technology and bringing to life Citizen’s “Light is Time” art installation, a visual expression of the concept of time and its relation to light. The installation takes center stage as glimmering base plates encapsulate the staircase, inviting consumers into the store and to the upper shop floors, inspired by Citizen’s proprietary light-powered Eco-Drive technology and spotlights the foundation of any watch movement.
As shoppers venture through the space they encounter a large video display viewable from the street with True 3D technology that make watches appear to visually jump from a screen, and a 20-foot-long branded wall showcasing the company’s history in watchmaking, which leads through the flagship’s dedicated shops-in-shop for each brand.
The first two floors contain independent shops with a full range of timepiece offerings from Citizen, Bulova, Accutron, Frederique Constant and Alpina across sport, style, and luxury collections, in addition to timepieces that are available exclusively at the flagship location. In addition, the second floor will offer a full-service concierge bar, where customers can take their timepieces for repair and maintenance.
The third floor includes a museum archive and dedicated space for on-site programming, events, and community activities scheduled for 2024.
The New York opening follows the opening in 2017 of a 3,230-square-foot flagship multibrand showroom in Tokyo that carries a full lineup of watches from Alpina, Arnold & Son, Bulova, Campanola, Frederique Constant and, of course, Citizen.
Although the brand has an extensive network of wholesale distributors within the U.S., in recent years Citizen has transformed its sales strategy, making its products available direct to consumer via e-commerce. The Manhattan flagship further boosts Citizen’s profile with consumers.
“Following Tokyo and Osaka, Citizen’s first Citizen Watch Group flagship store in North America plays an important role in promoting the brand image upheld by Citizen,” said Yoshitaka Ohji, managing director of Citizen Watch Co. “By opening such a store in a prime location like Fifth Avenue in New York City, one of the world’s premier shopping areas, we have created a space where a diverse range of customers can immerse themselves and experience the brand stories and identity, products, and technology of our diverse brand portfolio that we are proud of.”
Cohen added: “We’re relevant — you know we’re always trying to do things different and we’re always trying to cater to the communities as much as possible, whether it be with some of our licensed businesses, with Disney and Citizen; whether it be to Latin music and the Latin community and the Bulova brand…There’s just so many things and so many pathways to the consumer today. So we are always doing a lot of different things and all the different channels that we do distribution across our brands in the whole network.”
