Cords London opening comes as corduroy is key trend focus

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 16, 2017

Corduroy is undeniably having a moment this season so the opening of a Soho, London flagship for the brand that describes itself as “the world's first premium corduroy fashion label for men and women” is certainly good timing.

Stockholm-based The Cords & Co has been on an opening spree this autumn with new stores debuting in its home city, as well in Europe and the US. The new London location is at 2 Silver Place and covers 560 square feet.

It offers an assortment of the label’s premium corduroy collections as well as special products, accessories and collaborations, which will be an on-going feature of the store.

The company is pulling out all the stops for the London debut with a big opening party and in-store installations such as The Weather Followers, which was created by Swiss artist David Colombini. It’s a sculpture connected to a web app that “brings serendipity to people’s life using constantly evolving weather data recorded by four weather instruments.” 

It will be in-store until next month. But more permanent is the overall look developed in collaboration with Swedish architects In Praise of Shadows. It takes a mix of skate culture and high-end fashion and adds in natural materials. These are arranged “to enhance the spatial characteristics of the store spaces and with reference to the ‘wales’ of the corduroy, the materials are also worked and arranged to create a composition of lines in different scales.”

So what are the store’s prospects? Management seems to think that London is a strong location.  “Corduroy has a strong historical connection to London - its musicians, artists, its culture - there’s a familiarity,” said CEO Omar Varts. “We’re surrounding ourselves with friends who are creatively contributing to the city, and we have opened in a part of London that has such vibrancy and energy. A courtyard at the rear of the store means people can pass through and feel at home and we’re using our basement as an ongoing exhibition space - that’s the type of place we want to establish.”

As mentioned, the company is opening a relatively large number of stores in key cities at present. In Stockholm, this autumn has seen two new locations while the Paris opening is in Le Marais and there are new stores in Venice and in LA. The company is also set to add a sixth New York city store, and coincidentally given the London location, that too will be in Soho.