PATAGONIA MARKS 20 YEARS IN NYC WITH NEW SOHO FLAGSHIP

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Last night outdoor brand Patagonia celebrated the 20-year anniversary of its first standalone store in New York by exchanging it for a bigger, better one.

The company officially unveiled its new three-floor SoHo store at 72 Greene St., which has replaced Patagonia’s first New York retail space at 101 Wooster St., at an opening party for press, employees, fans and brand ambassadors including surfer Dan Malloy, photographer Jeff Johnson and climber Brittany Griffith.

Housed in a building known as “The King of Greene Street” because of its elaborate iron façade in the French Renaissance and Second Empire style, the store uses numerous reclaimed materials such as long leaf pine panels from Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and marble steps and pavers that were originally used in the sculpture garden at the Museum of Modern Art. The marble pieces form the first-floor cash wrap.

Upstairs, there is a Worn Repair station where a full-time staff can repair old Patagonia products and thereby give them a second life. It is next to a large community workspace where the environmentally conscious brand sponsors free yoga classes. This area also serves as a meeting and special event space for likeminded environmental non-profits in New York.

In honor of the anniversary the brand has also launched a new free approx. 100-page magazine called Living & Breathing: 20 Years of Patagonia in New York City. It features interviews, articles, art and photography. Its opening letter to readers explains, “We were drawn to the city in 1995, for the 19th-century cast-iron or brick buildings, for the community energy evident in a town where everybody walks, the proximity to the Gunks, the sight of surfboards on the Queens-bound A Train. We were impressed that, within months of opening SoHo, it became our largest store by sales volume. We turned out to have more in common with New York than we thunk.”

Patagonia now operates four stores in Manhattan: SoHo, the Upper West Side, Bowery and Meatpacking.