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| Abercrombie & Fitch Flagship Stores |
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New York City
London
Los Angeles |
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Description: |
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To many, the experience of shopping in an Abercrombie & Fitch retail store is synonymous with an up-tempo, high-energy soundtrack played at a volume meant to reflect the sportiness of the brand. When Abercrombie & Fitch, established in 1892 as a supplier of rugged clothing, decided to amplify its brand even further with three flagship stores in New York, Los Angeles, and London, Essential Communications provided the bigger and bolder sound system necessary to fill out the massive spaces.
“Abercrombie & Fitch expects every aspect of their stores to be stimulating. They don’t want anything plain and ordinary, and that philosophy definitely extends to the sound system,” says David Schwartz, president of Essential Communications. “They expect extremely high fidelity, and reliability is a key issue: it’s a seven-day-a-week operation, and when you rely that heavily on a sound system, you simply can’t have it go down.”
The first of the flagships to be built was the 36,000-square-foot location on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Abercrombie & Fitch executives intended for the flagship store to have a "precedent-setting sound system, something that had never been done before," Schwartz recalls. They also sought a "theatre-like sound".
"Once I heard that, it was crystal clear to me that I was going to use loudspeakers from Meyer Sound. To me, Meyer Sound and theatre are synonymous: virtually all of the Broadway houses use Meyer, for example.”
Schwartz employed Meyer Sound UPM-1P ultra-compact wide coverage and MM-4 miniature wide-range loudspeakers, supported by UMS-1P ultra-compact subwoofers. “The subwoofers line the north and south sides of the store, and what we wanted to do was almost create the feeling of one giant subwoofer, with a push-and-pull effect that makes the store almost feel like it’s breathing. That effect is amplified by the fact that shoppers don’t really know where the sound is coming from, since the UMS-1Ps are built into the store’s cabinetry and camouflaged by customized grilles.”
No fewer than 139 Meyer Sound MM-4 miniature wide-range loudspeakers bring full, highly controlled sound to the equation, teaming with the 45 subwoofers to make the sound uncommonly strong, clear and even, with no perceptible change when moving from zone to zone. “The MM-4 has a tight coverage pattern, and therefore we thought of the speaker as a spotlight,” notes Schwartz. “We used it to focus sound into areas we wanted sound to be in, with a carefully planned overlap from speaker to speaker. There isn’t a dead spot in that store.”
The success in New York naturally led to Schwartz's designing Meyer Sound systems for the London and Los Angeles flagship locations. The London project presented unique challenges, as its Mayfair location was designated a historical landmark. "The building was built in 1725 as a residence for local royalty," Schwartz says. The 23,000 square foot structure had many incarnations before Abercrombie & Fitch moved in.
“Visually the London store is totally unlike any Abercrombie & Fitch site, because the look and the feel are very traditional,” Schwartz says. “That means audio has to play an even bigger part in reinforcing the label’s brand identity.”
The Los Angeles flagship location presented its own architectural challenges, only there Abercrombie & Fitch wasn’t starting from scratch. In this case, an existing store’s impressive glass atrium and domed roof became the highlights of a revitalized space. “There were definitely some acoustical challenges in the LA store as there were in all three spaces,” Schwartz recalls. “In order to control the sound in such an unruly physical environment, we used Meyer MM-4s to spot-focus the audio into certain areas.”
Schwartz elaborates, “Sound design is truly a lot like lighting design. Ideally you’ll want to plan your audio distribution similar to the way you set up lights. You’re not going to be able light the whole room with one large fixture in the corner. You want to put lights all over the room.”
The resulting sound in Abercrombie & Fitch's three flagship stores makes it a milestone shopping experience. “It was one of the most challenging projects I’ve worked on,” Schwartz concludes. “Abercrombie & Fitch’s attention to detail in everything, including the sound system, is incredible. They know that consumers expect to hear great sound everywhere they go now.”
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