A.K. Rikk's: More than Retail

A.K. Rikk's is creating an altar to fashion. Announced last week, a building is being rejuvenated to be filled with all manner finery and luxurious goods, well before Christmas shopping starts. There will be a 17-foot tall vertical TV screen that football will never play on. There is a bar. A room is dedicated to bespoke suits overlooking a suspended exhibition floor, above the actual floor below. There is a shoe room for women’s shoes. Only women’s shoes. This is a space designed exclusively for fashion and style, all 28,000 square feet of it.

A.K. Rikk's is moving down the street. In physically moving less than a mile, A.K. Rikk's is also looking to become many more things then an apparel boutique. Re-imagining the regional Nextel offices, the new store is designed to be much broader than the traditional boutique, but at the same time, not a cavernous department store. “We wanted to be as customer-centric as possible, and that’s how we built this store,” says Jim Murray, manager of A.K. Rikk's, during their press conference. That’s understating things a bit. By all description, and based on a walkthrough of it as renovations continue, the building is a temple to the fashion community. This means a dedicated event space, but much more uniquely, a space bigger then the entire square footage of A.K. Rikk's’ first store has been set aside and will be used on fashion-based internships. Students of photography, film, styling and design will be given space and tools to explore and create new works.

Everybody knows that retail is changing and evolving. Murray has spoken many times about the competition that A.K. Rikk's faces from other luxury boutiques in Chicago and New York. “How are we going to compete? We owe it to our customers. If that’s who they want us to compete with, then that’s what we’ll do?” says Murray. The new store is designed to compete in its offerings of services and products by taking on the ambitious task of re-imagining the store and its relationship to the community, in both the front and back of the house.

The Backroom is the tentative name for the nonprofit that will operate out of a 3,000-square-foot space dedicated to students. There will be technology and space for students to make, shoot, edit and otherwise explore fashion. This is such a priority to Murray and the rest of A.K. Rikk's that they are planning on spending $250,000 per year on it, and expect it to expand the program. The Backroom would give Kendal and GRCC design students an entry point into the fashion industry, but in Grand Rapids, not New York.

“We are thinking about how we can be a better asset to Grand Rapids," says Murray. "We have relationships to CEOs and community leaders. We’ve been looking at all of our relationships that we have with the store, and thinking how we can create something new in the city with them.” The Backroom is also a method of keeping promising young talent in Grand Rapids with an entry point for students who are interested in the many parts of fashion to learn more and gain experience. They will be the only boutique store with a multi-media nonprofit inside. But for people who are not students, but want to be part of the community, there is also the event space.

According to Murray the event space is already getting bookings for the fall. The space will be a place for events like Fashion’s Night Out and other gatherings that can help build the fashion community in Grand Rapids. It's a place for people to show off their clothes, not just purchase them.

Serving customers well is what Murray and his team do, and notoriously well. In addition to the classroom and community spaces, A.K. Rikk's will be using a picture-based point of sale system (good by forever SKU), so that all varieties and styles of a single piece of apparel can be instantly shown to a customer. Sustainable features like LED lighting and special glass make the building more green then it was before the redesign. “It’s important to transform a building, not to change the urban footprint of the city when it’s not necessary," Murray says. They’re doing it because it’s what the customers want. There is going to be a room dedicated to kids, including the ones that are 6 feet tall and would rather play NBA 2K12 then shop with Mom or Dad. Parents can consult a sales associate’s iPad and watch live video footage of the kids' room.

All of these features of the new store have been chosen to reinforce the specialness of shopping, the personal touch and little attentions to detail that make for a great space. The women’s section will be expanded out of AKA into a much bigger space for women who are coming in to invest in a perfect single pair of shoes, and are looking for the purchase to be a singular experience rather than simply shopping.

During a conversation with Jim, he talked repeatedly about using the store to develop the style community in Grand Rapids. The success of A.K. Rikk's will mean more well-dressed people in Grand Rapids, more pop-up stores, and hopefully, with the new building and larger social foundations, a return to the downtown.

This building being renovated by A.K. Rikk's is ambitious, and the goals they have for it are not just cash-based-bottom-line, but social. Many people in the fashion community will be looking towards Grand Rapids to see if the little menswear store that opened over 20 years ago can germinate an engaged, fashionable community of people into a culture.

Adam Bird is the Managing Photographer of Rapid Growth Media. 

PHOTOS: 

First photo: The customer service obsessives at A.K. Rikk's.

Second photo: Jim Murray, manager of A.K. Rikk's.

Third photo: A rendering of the new facade of the redesigned building.

Fourth photo: When customers enter, they are greeted by a grand staircase and a bar.

Fifth photo: The bespoke suit room.

Sixth photo: The downstairs floor plan.

Seventh photo: The upstairs floor plan.

Photography by ADAM BIRD