so i'm up visiting my friends and we stop in at palisades in west nyack, ny and go into abercrombie & fitch. as we are walking out there is a huge store front of gilly hicks right across. its next to forever 21 and directly across from johnny rockets... underneath the food court. good location... but really... palisades!?!? also noticed that the victoria secret is remodeling. i guess palisades is going to become the 'it' mall now. four brands in that mall! is garden state or short hills getting a gilly any time soon? those are much closer to me and seems like gilly would be a good fit in those kinds of malls. maybe if palisades wasn't so ugly with its retro neon lights? when is the ruehl opening? hahaha

I would so trade Gilly for a Ruehl. Palisades had been the guinea pig for a lot of new stores and concepts because it's a pretty diverse crowd. I think the lot where Gilly is going in is where Gap launched their "Forth and Towne" brand, and then killed the whole thing. A "Steps" (whatever that is) was in there for a while and now I guess Gilly. They must've been waiting for a helluva long time for that spot.

Victoria's Secret is the Juggernaut in the mall right now, It's located right on the main shopping "concourse" of the mall that gets the highest traffic, and I heard they do the best profits. They're doing a full-scale remod and supposedly putting in one of the only dedicated "Pink" stores in the country. Good competition. Anyways, it'll def be weird seeing Gilly there. It's like seeing the parthenon inside of a costco.

palisades is the one mall in the country where gilly will be most out of place. such an ugly mall for such a nice store. but i dont hate it!

i hope they get a ruehl. i love that place they have epic and back stage two of my fav stores. i get mad true religions and ed hardy and affliction shit from their. ruehl is nice to.

If they get a Ruehl, i'll possibly go like twice. But Freehold, GSP, or Short Hills needs a Gilly b4 Palisades

I disagree on all of those besides GSP. Palisades is a HUGE mall and makes mad bank (never saying that again) because they get so many different markets of shoppers. Short Hills is too upscale (read: low sales) for a Gilly at launch and I'm not really familiar with Freehold, but from its Wikipedia page it doesn't sound like it would draw the same amount of people as either GSP or Palisades. Palisades is an international destination mall(I heard something like 20% of gift certificates they sell come in vacation packages from other countries), and at launch the most important thing is to get the name of a brand out, so stores are first put in the highest traffic areas they can find, which I guess would be Palisades. Maybe GSP has no desirable vacancy for a Gilly, or maybe they're hoping on a different type of customer.

The way I've seen it was that GSP catered to the higher-end shopping done by Upper Saddle River (Lacoste, Kate Spade, Nordstrom), while Palisades has midlevel stores more accustomed to regular people and people coming in from the city (Epic, Journeys, Gap). Also the Hollister sells much more than the A&F here, so maybe they just assumed they had a high target market. Whatever it is, I'm glad to see they have one, I just wish the mall (and A&F and HCO) were a little nicer.

GSP didn't have a suitable spot to fit in a Gilly.....




Don't expect to see another RUEHL in the new jersey area anytime soon though, lol.

GSP need Gilly, so they have all the AF concept store .
Palisades looks way too old and trashy compare to GSP.
Freehold is a "meh" mall, not too bad but nothing stands out either.

I have sources that Newport Centre Mall in Jersey City, NJ is getting an A&F and posssibly Ruehl. I was talking to a mall representative yesterday, and they said they're talking to Abercrombie & Fitch about opening a Ruehl in mid-2009.

THE LIFE VICARIOUS: Jersey City mall shopping news you can use.

I saw the blockade today, It's HUGE. I didn't notice it saying Gilly Hicks on it anywhere though, but I didn't really look that hard. Everyone who walked by seemed really puzzled about it, not knowing why there were some dudes and a chick standing there in their undies. It'll def do well. That won't mean I won't hate it, though.

Palisades does seem like a random mall, when when you look at it demographics wise its not. You have everything from Rave, Forever 21 and Target to BCBG and Armani Exhchange. There is a wide range of demographics and it is a destination mall.. so for that reason it provide a good picture of how a store will do all across America. Just an FYI: The Hollister at Palisades was one of the first five Hollister's that they opened

Geez, that's pretty cool about the Hollister. But yeah, I think it's because they get that huge cross section of people of all different incomes and lifestyles. There's the lower-income people from the city, the mid-level suburban shoppers from the surrounding areas, and the upper class that comes in from Jersey, why I don't know. Gilly will do very well, esp. if they shout from the rooftops how close it is with the Hollister, it seems to sell significantly better than the A&F in the mall.