The flagship shop on the Santa Monica Promenade opens Friday. The lo-fi design is meant to evoke a garage – inspired in part by the space out of which Sanuk founder Jeff Kelley first started crafting shoes in 1998.
Jake Brandman, Sanuk’s president, said in an interview that he considers the store “a place to play.” The 1,000-square-foot location features a wall display crammed with a hodgepodge of yard-sale and thrift-store finds, including a guitar, a surfboard, a Buddha statue in a fish tank and a pile of videotapes such as “Pulp Fiction” and “Free Willy.”
“Consumers are looking for a diversion from all the serious brands they see in a marketplace,” Brandman said. “We’re offering them an escape to a fun, irreverent place.”
For years, Sidewalk Surfers and other Sanuk shoes were sold via other retailers, such as Jack’s Surfboards, REI and Zappos.
Some 65 shops dedicated to Sanuk products – most of them in Asia – are owned and operated by licensees. Three of them are located in the U.S., including one at Downtown Disney in Anaheim.
But after the brand was acquired in 2011 by Deckers Outdoor Corp., executives began brainstorming how to leverage the larger company’s retail know-how to launch Sanuk-owned stores......
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