Destination Denim: Paige Adams-Geller on Opening a European Flagship
LONDON — London has always been a second home for Paige Adams-Geller, the founder of her namesake label, Paige.
Her dogs are called London, Chelsea Dickens, Devon and her horse is named Chester, after the town in northwest England.
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So it comes as no surprise that her first international store outside of the U.S. is opening in London’s Sloane Square on Duke of York Square.
“I died and went to heaven because I had always walked through Duke of York square and always wanted a store in Chelsea. When I saw the location was available and did the walkthrough, I felt like there’s no place like home,” said Adams-Geller in an interview, who is part English and American.
She had been searching for a space for six years and was set on London being her first international store due to its popularity and her own spiritual connection with the city.
“With the success of being number-one [in the denim department] at Selfridges, Harrods, Harvey Nichols and Liberty for women’s and men’s, this showed that the brand has strength,” said Adams-Geller.
The Paige store was previously an All Saints store with dark interiors and moody lighting — the complete opposite of Adams-Geller’s vision for white walls and wooden floors with monochrome fixtures and touches of brown to make it feel as Californian as possible.
She’s added subtle nods to her own home with the cobalt blue sofa, gray rug, marble table and light wooden chairs. She plans to decorate the walls with black-and-white photographs from Paige campaigns and photo shoots.
This is the brand’s largest store to date, taking up 4,000 square feet, with two entrances, one on King’s Road and the other on Duke of York Square with two levels and a small mezzanine.
Amy Martins, a retail coordinator who began with the brand in Selfridges, will be heading up the London store.
“It’s like having a daughter that’s there on the floor, representing the brand and knows the customers,” said Adams-Geller.
The ground floor will hold the majority of the women’s collections, including footwear with menswear dotted around, whereas downstairs will be dedicated to menswear and the brand’s first VIP suite for personal styling and events.
Adams-Geller is a denim-head — she understands the difficulties and joys of finding the perfect denim. She wants to use the VIP suite to make new and existing customers feel at ease when shopping for denim.
“This will be a comfortable environment to go through the process of what I call the denim-try-arathon,” she said.
The store will hold exclusive collections and 20 percent of the stocked product will not be available at any other retailers.
The next piece of the puzzle for Adams-Geller is introducing men’s footwear, a plan that she’s been working on for a while with a due date imminent.
“Men would come into the store and they would start asking if a particular boot was available for them [to go with their jeans],” she said.
Growing up, she worked as a fit model with Hard Tail, Guess, True Religion, Lucky, Habitual and Liquid. She often found that she wanted to go shoe shopping when trying on jeans, which is how the inception of footwear came about for her brand.
“When I wasn’t feeling my best and I didn’t feel like trying on clothes. I would always try on shoes because my feet are always the same size,” said Adams-Geller.
When creating the denim designs for Paige, she would bring her old shoes and design around them.
The footwear offerings now on sale in stores and on the brand’s website are all designed by Adams-Geller.
Paige will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year and the preparations are already in place for a special capsule collection.
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