“Telfar is about to turn 20 years old,” founder Telfar Clemens tells Highsnobiety. “That is a history of conceptual non-gendered 360° fashion — not an Instagram brand.” Yes, Telfar is famed for its signature, world-conquering bags but it’s also so much more.
And so Telfar is opening its very own flagship store, right in the heart of what Clemens calls “the literal epicenter of counterfeit bag sales in the USA.”
That’s right: Telfar is coming to Soho, New York City, baby.
“You have to try on real clothes in person. But the stores for our person don’t exist,” Clemens continues. “So, we had to make it.”
On November 23 at 408 Broadway, mere feet from Canal street’s famed parade of fake designer handbags — where fake Telfar bags are peddled daily — the Telfar store will opens its doors to the public. The Telfar store will not merely be a “store” in the conventional sense, like how its much-mobbed 2022 “Rainbow” pop-up was hardly an ordinary pop-up
Telfar’s store will house a comprehensive collection of Telfar’s inimitable ready-to-wear, of course, but also a communal space intended to create real-world culture.
There’s an in-house TV studio, for instance, allowing guests to quite literally tap in to Telfar TV, the disruptive media platform operated by the brand itself.
“We had to innovate to escape the fashion system and become the biggest black-owned brand in fashion history,” Clemens continues. “We did that through ‘community’ — but today that word is just a corporate branding strategy. You can’t tell the difference online. Let’s see if you can in person. We are betting on a difference between real and fake.”
Clemens calls the Telfar store “a if-you-know-you-know and if-you-don’t-know-go-know proposition,” reflecting the brand’s “Not for you — For Everyone” mantra. It’s anti-algorithm, as all physical spaces ought to be, and it’s intended to be as much of a casual hang as a shopping destination.
“[Soho is] one of those last remaining neighborhoods in Manhattan that feels like New York when New York was for New Yorkers,” says Clemens. And with that comes the spontaneity of the street, the of-the-moment happenings that can only be experienced by real bodies in real time.
Speaking of, Telfar’s November 23 launch will be very much a happening. Come join a live episode of Telfar TV hosted in nearby Cortlandt Alley, expected to lure in upwards of a thousand people.
A brand-new bag will drop and an open mic talent show will invite all to show their stuff, with the celeb judges allowing skilled folks to skip the line and truly gifted individuals to obtain the new Telfar bag free of charge.
Now, how’s that for a prize?