Premier Retail

COVERGIRL Times Square

COVERGIRL
Written by Roma Publications

COVERGIRL

Times Square Flagship Store

FRCH NELSON has announced its completion of the COVERGIRL Times Square flagship, the brands first permanent retail destination.

In partnership with Shawmut Design and Construction, FRCH NELSON helped envision and design the two-floor 10,000 square foot retail space, turning one of Time’s Square’s busiest street corners into a sleek, cosmetic hub for the ultimate shared beauty experience.

Robyn Novak, Vice President 1 Creative Managing Director at FRCH NELSON, told Premier Retail: “The goal of COVERGIRL Times Square was to bring the COVERGIRL brand to life. As retail becomes more experiential the brand wanted to give customers something truly immersive, a destination worthy, beauty playground that embodies the brand’s confident essence and empowering spirit – and allows customers to touch, test and share.

“Looking to pay homage to the past, while celebrating the future, the design team also wanted to modernise key legacy elements of the beloved brand. From a new take on the iconic vanity lights, to utilising ring lights as dĂ©cor, the goal was to create a playful space that was more relevant for today’s consumer.”

To create a fully immersive, innovative, beauty destination where customers are encouraged to digitally experiment and express themselves with their favourite COVERGIRL products, the team installed high-end augmented reality glam stations and mirrors that allow shoppers to virtually try on makeup. A digital greeter, customisation stations and photo studio enhance the dynamic store layout, ushering in a new era of beauty retail.

Robyn said: “The COVERGIRL Times Square store creates a destination-worthy, beauty playground that embodies the brand’s confident essence and empowering spirit. Stepping into the world of COVERGIRL, product trial is front and centre at every touchpoint of the experience, digital activations elevate customisation opportunities, while Instagrammable moments capture the social connectivity at the heart of the brand.”

All design aspects of the COVERGIRL Times Square flagship were selected to further enhance the brands ‘I Am What I Make Up’ philosophy, allowing guests the ability to showcase their personal beauty expression. This dynamic, new experience centres around product-trial, celebrating the first brick-and-mortar environment where fans of COVERGIRL can test, customise and share the brands products. Glam studios are located on both floors and provide the perfect setting to play stylist in order to create and share your beauty masterpiece.

In addition to the experiential sales area, the space features two 25-foot signs, customer illuminated signage and lightboxes and two large TV screens. Highlights of the space include a shimmer wall made of spinning light discs, and coloured LED wall washers.

“This was an extremely fast-moving project from start to finish, working towards the ultimate goal of being open for shoppers to experience Black Friday,” said Robyn. “Working on a project of this scope on such a tight schedule is a testament to the COVERGIRL Brand Marketing Team and the design and construction teams, including Shawmut Construction. Through strategic planning and execution, we were able to complete the project on time to kick-off the holiday shopping season.”

2018 saw several firsts for COVERGIRL. As well as opening their flagship store, COVERGIRL became the first mass makeup brand to launch a foundation, TruBlend Matte Made, with 40 shades at once; and it became the largest makeup brand to become Leaping Bunny certified by Cruelty Free International.

Robyn said: “While the project is still fresh, it has received extremely positive feedback and allows the brand to showcase not only cosmetics but lifestyle products to expand the brand’s offerings into a new market and generation.

“We were honoured to have partnered with COVERGIRL on this monumental project, This was the first standalone COVERGIRL retail experience, allowing lifelong fans an opportunity to engage and interact with the product, immersing themselves in the three-dimensional expression of the iconic brand.”

COVERGIRL Times Square represents the latest in a series of high-profile projects for FRCH NELSON, including American Girl’s ‘Store of the Future’ at Rockefeller Plaza, Hershey’s Chocolate World on Times Square and The Containers Store’s ‘Next Gen’ in Dallas, Texas.

 

Imageone

Imageone is a multi-faceted manufacturing, installation and service company, specialising in custom interior environmental solutions, signage and identity solutions, design and consultation services, on call services and preventative maintenance.

From its East Coast and Arizona facilities, Imageone services and installs throughout the continental US, Canada, Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. The company was founded in 2007 and has enjoyed double digit annual growth to become one most influential and forward thinking companies in its industry.

Imageone follows one standard that is the base on which the company was formed – Excellence, Whatever It Takes. With this philosophy, the company has developed an extensive and diverse client base including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Pier 1 Imports, Santander Bank, Capital One, Outback Steakhouse, KFC and Golf Galaxy.

For Cover Girl Times Square, Imageone was tasked with interpreting the designs envisioned by FRCH for the ‘Shimmer Walls and the illuminated interior graphics and converting them to reality.

A spokesperson for Imageone commented:

“Working on Times Square gives every company participating in the project an opportunity to showcase their most creative talent and workmanship to the world. We are very honoured to have been invited to contribute our manufacturing expertise to Cover Girl and play a part in the successful launch of the store.

“Our entire business philosophy is based on delivering unrivalled customer service coupled with outstanding quality and competitive pricing.”

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Roma Publications