Doing Dallas: How does NorthPark measure up?

Within the US, you may from time to time hear Dallas referred to as The Big D. While this may seem as if the Texan fathers are merely trying to follow in the wake of The Big Easy (aka New Orleans), there is some truth in the tag. This is a city that has it easy as far as expansion is concerned. It’s located in the middle of a very large, generally flat plain and room to grow is really not a problem. This may well be why, with the exception of the very small (and generally unremarkable) downtown area, most of the city is conspicuously low rise.

Indeed, apart from a flagship for that most Dallas of department stores, Neiman Marcus, there is virtually no retail activity in the heart of the city. However, head north along the toll road and you arrive at NorthPark. This is a shopping mall on a scale befitting a state where men are men and women are content, so it would appear, to play along, with many seeming to bear all the hallmarks of multiple visits to the cosmetic surgeon.

If it’s a snapshot of US retailing that you seek therefore, you’re in the right place with the sheer size being such that there are large branches of department stores Nordstrom, Macy’s, Barneys New York, Dillard’s and another Neiman Marcus - as big as the one downtown.

All this and every US “specialty” retailer you can bring to mind and more besides. And for a true cornball moment in a nearby retail park there’s a branch of Dick’s Sporting Goods, a name that barely raises a smile in these God-fearing parts - the part of the interstate highway that thunders past NorthPark has been adopted by a local church.

Anthropologie

The Urban Oufitters format, which launches in the UK on October 23, has a large branch in NorthPark and while its internal visual merchandising is up to the high standards that anyone who has visited its US stores will have observed, it is the windows that really impress. These take the form of cascading pieces of red wood, bolted together to form an arc that stretches across the glass-line.
It is a measure of this retailer’s attention to detail that while it might have been easy to assemble this off-site, the visual merchandising team, who were on hand on the day of visiting, said that it had taken three days to put together, in situ. If the Regent Street store proves to be as visually strong as this branch, UK shoppers will be in for a surprise later this month.

Brighton Collectibles

This is a truly American format and one that is well suited to Dallas. It’s a handbags and accessories store that layers on the glitz with leopard skin print handbags, highly polished, but relatively cheap, silver jewellery and Murano glass-style chandeliers.

Strangely it couples all of this with a store front that is almost down-home in feel, featuring a floral door surround on a cream background and abstract poppy decals on the windows either side of this. Perhaps this carries with it the notion that while some of the merchandise is a tad racy, it is tempered by a store interior and exterior that is quasi-folksy. The other possibility, of course, is that it tries to be all things to all people and in the process becomes something of a mess.

Nonetheless, there are close to 150 branches of this chain in 39 states. The majority of these are much smaller than the NorthPark store, with concessions playing a major part.

Hanna Andersson

Read the website blurb about Hanna Andersson and a tenuous link is drawn between this wholly US-based chain and its “Swedish heritage.” This is a children’s fashion store in a part of NorthPark that has been themed for kidswear retailers.
It is a measure of the size of this mall that what would form a modest high street in terms of retailer numbers can be filled here with stores just for kids.

Hanna Andersson makes much of its supposed forbears’ love of things simple and Scandinavian with stripped wood fixturing and graphics that run around the shop above the built-in perimeter wardrobes. The latter take the form of homely Swedish words, such as “Vårt Köksbord”, which it says “means our kitchen table” - above which are a series of childlike cartoon faces.
The combination of white painted wood, stripped wood and cream walls make this a fairly bland interior, but at least it does a reasonable job of fostering a Nordic aesthetic.

Neiman Marcus

Whether you choose to visit the seven-floor downtown store or the three-floor NorthPark branch of Neiman Marcus, at about 217,000 sq ft, both are, give or take 400 sq ft, the same size. And both are temples to upscale consumption.

Neiman Marcus vice-president corporate communications Ginger Reeder, admits that business is tough, but says that the present strategy is “not to change who we are or what we do.” Certainly, a quick glance around the downtown emporium reveals a luxury environment where few compromises are made. And at every turn there are works of art, mostly modern, which Reeder says is a feature of all Neiman Marcus stores, adding that there is a full-time curator for the collection.

This is classic upscale department store retailing where the exposed floors are marble and the covered ones allow shoppers to sink deep into the shag pile.

The downtown store also has a remarkable sense of space, particularly in the jewellery and accessories department on the ground floor. Reeder says that this is about providing an unhurried shopping experience and that crowded rails crammed together do not work for a luxury customer.

Pinto Ranch

You know you’re in Texas when you stumble across a store where the assistants wear Stetsons and the merchandise has tassels, fringes and indigenous North American-style embroideries all over it.

If you really want to look like a cowboy this NorthPark store is where you’ll be heading. But the owners of the Pinto Ranch have not been content with offering a very specific type of merchandise. They have also chosen to create an interior intended to remind the visitor of the bunk house at a dude ranch, or something of the kind.

Certainly, the abundance of untreated wooden poles and supports mean that the eye-catching stock almost has its thunder stolen by the store’s internal structure. It may have had its time, though. On a mid-week day when customers were admittedly thin on
the ground, nobody seemed minded to saddle-up at the Pinto Ranch.

Barneys New York

The Barneys that you see when visiting New York is justly famous for its visual merchandising and something of that spirit has been successfully transported to NorthPark. The two large windows that it presents to mall walkers on the centre’s lower level are divided by gender with the left-hand side presenting a row of tailor’s dummies clad in jackets, shirts and ties and advertising the benefits of bespoke tailoring.

To the right of the main door is the women’s window where white mannequins strike poses against a Warhol-eqsue backdrop of multiple women’s heads all sporting early 1960s hairdos. Now head up to the upper level and take a look through the doors and the interior is a sea of blue mannequins.

This alone would be sufficient to set this department store outpost apart from its many in-mall rivals, but the manner in which it is done almost demands that you walk through the doors.