SoulCycle Sold Fans On Fitness, Now It’s Cashing In On Clothes
It’s a winter afternoon at the New York City headquarters of SoulCycle, the boutique cycling studio that launched in 2006 and has developed a cult-like community, and Bob Colquhoun, the company’s vice president of retail, is seated at a high conference room table, munching on a salad. At the headquarters, the company’s West Village studio is located on the ground level, where a class has just finished and a group of red-faced college students spill out the door, chattering. Around the bend, the office has a white, clean aesthetic complete with glass walls, artwork, pillows, and tchotchkes made of the company’s signature skull logo. Up the stairs, the majority of the 185-person team sits at long, white tables. The entire place smells like the signature grapefruit-scented Jonathan Adler candle SoulCycle burns in all its studios, and nearly every employee bustling around the office is decked out in leggings and SoulCycle-branded tees. (Also notable: Everyone is incredibly fit.) In the conference room where Colquhoun sits, racks of SoulCycle clothing line two sides of the room, and mood boards cover the others. Colquhoun arrived to SoulCycle a year and a half ago after working at Adam Lippes, Urban Outfitters, and Abercrombie & Fitch — a brand he spent six years working at, and whose former aggressively attractive aesthetic he still remarkably resembles. He’s been tasked with building out SoulCycle’s fashion division, which already has a robust collection of leggings, shorts, tank tops, sports bras, and tees, and is seeing immense growth as the fitness chain expands. Read more at Racked.
