Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Issue link: https://sct.epubxp.com/i/448937
As it happens, the choice is not with- out its proponents. Chicago "is prob- ably a pretty smart move" for any U.S. beachhead, according to Dwight Hill, a Dallas-based partner at Chicago-based retail consultant firm McMillan Doo- little. For one thing, among major cit- ies the real estate is relatively cheaper in Chicago, Hill says. "Foreign chains are often tempted to open first in New York or Los Angeles," he said, "but those are both unusual markets that aren't neces- sarily a good guide to what will sell in the heartland." In any case, like Anthropologie and eS NÉrÉIDeS IS eNter- INg the U.S. this month with a store set to open in Chicago. this Chicago location, the French costume-jewelry design chain's 41st worldwide, was not supposed to be the very first of the 10 stores the company is planning for the U.S. over the next few years. But good locations are hard to find these days, so when this space opened up, in the Block thirty Seven mall, near the Anthropologie and Sephora outlets, Les Néréides grabbed it, says Sophie Couret- Delègue, the chain's business and development director. Sephora, Les Néréides sells affordable style, and its take on costume jewelry has little in common with the cubic zirconia rocks hawked on late-night tV or the trinkets for preteens on offer at Claire's. Les Néréides specializes instead in what it calls bijoux haute-fantaisie — high-fantasy jewelry: hand-painted enamel items de- signed with a touch of gallic whimsy. the chain's founders are husband and wife enzo and Pascale Amaddeo, who opened their first shop in 1980 in Nice, on the French riviera. the Belgian couple named the shop after the Nereids, the sea nymphs of greek mythology. the Amaddeos started out selling a combi- nation of their own work and the prod- ucts of suppliers, but when their own designs began outselling the others, they refocused accordingly. In 1990 the Ama- ddeos relocated to Paris. today the chain L Crossing the pond FRENCH JEWELRY BRAND LEs NÉRÉiDEs HAs OPENED iTs FiRsT U.s. sHOP By Bennett Voyles r e t a i L i n g t o d a y 14 S C t / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 5