Supreme confirms new store opening in San Francisco

After months of rumors and speculation, Supreme has officially confirmed the upcoming opening in San Francisco, California.
The New York-based brand founded by James Jebbia has confirmed the opening of its new location on its website, offering a place in line for a possible grand opening (the registration has already closed, but Supreme fans can still sign up for official updates on the new store). On the official IG account Supreme has shared three contents dedicated to San Francisco: a skate video by William Strobeck, a series of photos taken by the magazine Hamburger Eyes and a photo by Larry Clark dating back to 1995.

In addition, the brand has also bought an ad in the San Francisco Chronicle to announce the new store.The ad shows a picture of the late skater Pablo Ramirez — a member of the San Francisco crew GX1000 who passed away in April of this year — and the store’s address: 1015 Market Street, in the middle of downtown and just few blocks away from Twitter's headquarter. There's still no official date for the grand opening, the only information left is the name of the store manager, a key figure in every Supreme's store. Reese Forbes - former pro skateboard - is gonna take the job. Forbes said he spent the last 10 months preparing to run the upcoming Supreme store in San Francisco, flying around to the different branches and working at them. “They’re opening in the fall in S.F. They’ve been doing a lot to get the store ready. We’ll see what happens”

The San Francisco's opening is going to anticipate the first Supreme's store opening in Italy (in Milan) and its part of a wider strategy that aims to increase the physical presence of the brand.
Perhaps more interesting than the expansion is the speed at which it’s happening. The brand opened only its third U.S. retail location, in Brooklyn, in 2017, the same year Carlyle group acquired half of the brand for 500 million.. While two years between new stores might not feel like a particularly quick turnaround, the gap between the Brooklyn store and the one that preceded it, Los Angeles, spanned 13 years. This is relative warp speed for a brand that’s succeeded by never pressing the gas pedal particularly hard.

Additionally, a new store in San Francisco means more Supreme stock—which would presumably hurt the resale value of Supreme everywhere. There’s no doubt the demand for the brand remains sky-high, but the closer Supreme gets to fulfilling those desires, the higher the risk of losing the hype that’s driven the brand for over two decades. The SF shop will help Supreme sell more merchandise, and do more to meet its billion-dollar valuation. Opening only a fourth store in the states isn’t going to completely change Supreme's position in the fashion landscape, but it’s certainly interesting to see what looks like the brand revving up its physical locations