I am woman, hear me roar

Romantic, residential retail best describes NIKEgoddess, Nike's new 6,000-sq.-ft. store that provides sports and fitness apparel, footwear and equipment for women. The Beaverton, Ore.-based company's first store opened in October in Newport Beach, Calif.'s Fashion Island and received a positive response from consumers. The store's space evokes a warm, comfortable, almost romantic feeling to attract female shoppers into a retail world that has been historically more attentive to men. "What you feel in a NIKEgoddess store is a great sense of intimacy, and the design helps the customer feel comfortable through residential cues," says Pamela Neferkara, director of retail presentation for Nike.

Development for the NIKEgoddess concept started about two years ago when John Hoke, head of design for Nike, and other company executives identified an emerging opportunity to focus on the female athlete. "She makes three out of four purchasing decisions for any household; 51 percent of the population is female and very interested in being active and vital and athletic. We want to be much more accessible to that customer," Hoke says.

The NIKEgoddess store has always been the goal, but Nike first produced a NIKEgoddess Web site and magazine to show its dedication to the female consumer. Through research and insight, Nike implemented a design vision and a plan to carry this vision into a retail environment. "We created an integrated women's design vision that reflected what the customer needed. It became 'modern comfort.' It's about being fresh on the marketplace; it's having a modern and sophisticated styling point of view; it's about comfort in the environment and the notion of being active and athletic," Hoke explains.

In collaboration with Seattle-based Callison Architecture Inc., Nike developed an exact replica of the prototype NIKEgoddess store in Beaverton, Ore., before opening the actual first store. "Everybody had a chance to make changes in the mock-up. It's a great expense, but this saved us from problems in the real design," says Paula Stafford, principal, Callison.

The retail space captures a simple, comfortable residential notion that allows its merchandise to outshine its interior design. "The overall theme of the design is a showcase for product rather than a showpiece. It's a hands-on, residential atmosphere. You feel very comfortable in the space. There's no overwhelming architecture or display work," Hoke says.

The store's design stems from a mid-century modern design philosophy, Hoke explains. "Its warm, modern interior focuses on materials and understated industrial craftsmanship," he says. The customer is constantly reminded through residential cues that shopping here is a complete, consistent experience. "The store breaks down the traditional feeling of what a store is. It's the blurring of fixtures to furniture. The design is vernacular in making women feel comfortable and at home. It's almost spa-like," says Stafford.

Another unique design quality of NIKEgoddess is that both its merchandise and store design evolved simultaneously, creating a harmonious relationship between product and space. "It's a great opportunity where store product and store design are in sync," Stafford points out, also saying that this is one of the first projects she's worked on where this is true.

The design team organized the merchandise by implementing two space allocations. The runway in the center of the store, which is composed of a multi-colored blue mosaic tile that attaches the floor to the ceiling and features mannequins donning the latest fashions, divides the store into two distinct halves. "The left is the boutique and the right is the warehouse," Hoke says. "The boutique side is about a selected presentation where you have less product density. You pull a couple of products out and really romance them. The warehouse side is about product density."

Launch tables to the right hold the product, which is displayed on the left. "We learned that if women can't find their size, they often times walk away rather than ask," he says.

Fixtures reveal bleached veneers and dark woods. The design team used whitened aluminum for fixturing elements that hang products. "It has a nice, clean, refined and sophisticated aesthetic that partners up with the paint and material palette," Hoke says. The color scheme is neutral, with dark woods mixed with pale blues and bleached woods to provide a subtle backdrop for the product.

Materials used in the design represent Nike's attempt to achieve environmental friendliness. For example, instead of using wood stained mahogany in the dark wood fixtures and furniture, Nike used a similar wood laminate to achieve the same look. "The entire store was designed with a green backbone to it," Hoke states. The same went for the flooring. Instead of using a hardwood, an American farm-stained oak wood system, in two different gradients, was mixed throughout the floor space.

As for lighting, the overall strategy was to turn the lights on, Hoke says. "We wanted an even wash of the whole space, very much like a residence. There are some highs and lows, but the overall quality of light is warm, and lamps emit a sunlight base color to bring out the true color of the product."

In the end, Nike accomplished the development of a distinctive sub-brand through aligning store design and merchandise, while keeping the target customer in mind. It was a carefully planned process. In return, the store celebrates its current success by welcoming a second store, opening in the Grove at Farmer's Market in Los Angeles in mid-March 2002. Nike is also looking into rolling out additional stores outside of California, but no final decisions have been made.