The Apartment by The Line is a high-end home and fashion retail space in SoHo, Manhattan, that’s set up like a real home.It’s created by Assembled Brands, which was founded by Adam Pritzker, who also co-founded General Assembly.Assembled Brands aims to help small companies within the home, fashion, and beauty space by providing various business services.
Inside a third-floor SoHo loft sits a $12,000 velvet couch, a $28,000 hanging black-and-white Henri Cartier-Bresson print photograph, two $4,000 chairs, and everything else that makes for a cozy yet chic home.
It’s a beautiful living room, and it’s all for sale.
The store, which is called The Apartment by The Line, was created and carefully curated by the team behind Assembled Brands: founder and CEO Adam Pritzker and Creative Director Vanessa Traina. Pritzker and Traina started Assembled Brands in 2013 and describe it as a modern holding company. Basically, they provide various business services to small companies within the home, fashion, and beauty space. But before they worked with other brands, they started three of their own: The Line, Protagonist, and Tenfold.
By developing, manufacturing, marketing, and ultimately creating a storefront for their own lines, Pritzker and Traina were able to identify the problem spots and difficulties that other small companies were experiencing within the retail industry.
"What draws brands to [Assembled Brands is] that we have operating experience. We built these services out of the pain of operating these businesses ourselves - across both online and offline environments," Pritzker told Business Insider.
Together, the two are aiming to help what Pritzker identified as an "underserved" industry, by lowering operating costs and increasing distribution for these smaller companies creating products. Brands that are clients of Assembled Brands are a part of what they call "The Alliance."
Below, take a look The Apartment by The Line and the operation team behind it: Assembled Brands.
The Apartment by The Line is located in the neighborhood of SoHo in Manhattan, on a third floor. "We found this third floor space, which is a better deal in terms of real estate, and wanted it to feel authentic," Traina told Business Insider.
Upon entry, the customer feels as if they're in someone's home, complete with a massive closet, kitchen, living room, and bedroom.
There's a sense of voyeurism while walking through the space that's unlike a normal retail store.
Everything within The Apartment is for sale and merchandised by Traina.
While not all the brands within the store are within Assembled Brands' "Alliance," a number of them are, including Khaite, a women's ready-to-wear collection.
Traina has over 10 years of experience within the fashion industry.
Pritzker and Traina developed The Apartment in 2013 with the consumer in mind. "People now require a different level of transparency with businesses and they want to see the back story. Having this intimate experience serves customers in a different way," Traina said.
Just upstairs, above The Apartment, is the Assembled Brands office.
Now working with eight different brands, Assembled Brands provides services such as finance and accounting, capital and underwriting, marketing, and sales.
Their in-house photo studio and team provide a space for brands to photograph their various products.
"Our belief is that it takes a village to help brands focus on their brand identity and product development, and effectively take the finance and accounting off of their plate and to create a network to help each of these brands lower their operating costs, increase their distribution, and build enduring brands," Pritzker said.
Pritzker realized that these companies were struggling to fund, launch, and keep their brands afloat. "We had to discover the broken financing mechanism. Which seems minor, but is actually massive, it chokes all these small brands from any capital because no banks will touch them, and no venture capitalists should really touch them," he said.
"Historically ... retailers were the planners, the forecasters, and underwriters. Now, [they] have way too much debt on their balance sheet — they're just trying to stay alive ... So they're not underwriting these emerging brands," Pritzker said.
By providing credit and equity to these companies, Pritzker aims to serve what he calls an "underserved" industry.
Traina, who also helps choose brands to join the Alliance, says identifying which ones should join is "intuitive." "I can't explain why I'm drawn to a brand — [but] I identify brands that are doing something different, and that have growth potential," she said.
