Kate Spade Welcomes Summer With Cabana Pop-ups
Kate Spade has a new seasonal concept that celebrates the beginning of summer.
This month, the company will unveil Kate Spade Cabana, a new seasonal concept that will return each summer, celebrating the spirit of escape that one feels at the start of summer.
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The Cabana storyline will come to life through a series of pop-ups in New York City, London, Singapore and Malaysia. Starting May 20, in New York City, guests can step into the green and white striped Kate Spade Cabana to browse and shop tropical-fruit-patterned short sets, pom-pom-trimmed caftans, sun shifts and bucket hats in stripes, florals and palm prints, embroidered and embellished woven straw totes, and sandals and heels in graphic stripes and citrus motifs.
Additional pop-ups will open worldwide during the same timeframe as New York.
Jenny Campbell, chief marketing officer of Kate Spade New York, said, “They’re really charming. It’s very cabana-like; you can have 15 people at a time.” She said the thinking behind them was that the brand has a Cabana collection to get out in the market and this was a fun way to showcase it.
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“It’s a very playful collection that celebrates the arrival of summer. You know that feeling of excitement you get at the beginning of the season where all you want to do is be somewhere warm and sunny? We wanted to create that transformative experience where you’re walking down the city streets on a normal day and all of a sudden, up pops this cabana experience and puts you into that resort frame of mind where you kind of transform,” Campbell said.
She said the pop-up will have a full range of lifestyle components and full size assortment. The collection ranges in size from XXS and size 0 to XXL and size 16.
The Cabana pop-up will be in New York at The High Line in Chelsea (14th Street at the stairs on Ninth and 10th Avenues) on May 20 and 21. It moves the following weekend to Water Street and Old Fulton Street in DUMBO, Brooklyn on May 28 and 29.
For the third weekend, it hits Greenwich Street in TriBeCa on June 3 and 4.
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For the most part, they’re taking large corners, right off the sidewalk.
“We wanted to juxtapose the grittiness of New York and the city-ness with the idea that all of a sudden you’re transformed into resort atmosphere. That tension is a really nice thing,” Campbell said.
She anticipates the straw bags, the caftans, the striped products and the sandals will be bestsellers.
Accompanying the pop-up series is a Kate Spade Cabana campaign shot by Sean Thomas. The ads feature models Sabina Karlsson, Liz Kennedy, Lou Schoof, Halimotu Shokunbi, Judith Ann Warren and Kuma, the little black pug. It tells the story of escape and transformation juxtaposed against the city streets of New York. The shoot took place in TriBeCa outside the Roxy Hotel.
The brand has partnered with TikTok creators, including Drea Okeke and Dylan Mulvaney through a hashtag challenge with an augmented reality filter that encourages creators to “transform” from their everyday into a cabana state of mind. Users in North America can follow along #katespadenycabana to share their own transformation into a cabana aesthetic, and global creators will make content to express cabana as a state of mind.
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“Through our Cabana storyline, we set out to make our community around the globe feel an authentic connection to the brand. We love the idea that anyone, anywhere can walk into a cabana and transform their state of mind,” Campbell said.
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The Cabana experience will be accessible globally on both katespade.com and the brand’s surprise site. The Kate Spade Cabana assortment will launch on the Kate Spade surprise site on Wednesday, offering early access to brand fans, followed by a broad launch in specialty stores and on katespade.com on May 20.
Kate Spade has specialty stores in New York on Broome Street, Rockefeller Center, World Trade Center and Hudson Yards.
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