John Hardy's new store in SoHo.
NEW YORK — John Hardy has opened its first U.S. flagship, a three-level, 3,600-square-foot store at 118 Prince Street here.
The unit heralds the brand’s ongoing transformation, which includes moving from an opening-price-point silversmith to a bona-fide jeweler with pieces in gold and semiprecious stones; hiring a creative director; leveraging the company’s archives; targeting new customers, including Millennials, and planning to open 10 to 15 stores in key U.S. cities over the coming years.
A John Hardy store opened in September in the River Oaks section of Houston.
With its exotic back-story set in Bali, the brand has always been a bit of an anomaly. John Hardy, a Canadian adventurer, founded the business 40 years ago, establishing an “artisan collective with jewelers trained by the royal courts of Bali,” said Robert Hanson, chief executive officer. “We still have a workshop there, which is where all our designers are located.”
Hardy has long since retired from the company, which in 2014 was acquired by the private equity firm L Catterton.
John Hardy, the business, is trying to find a happy medium between Bali, the island where the brand’s namesake started it all and where production remains, and the desire to expand and modernize...