Ayr Is Leaving Bonobos and Looking for Downtown Retail Space

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Ayr is resolving to step out of Bonobos' shadow for 2016. WWD reports that the nearly-two-year-old label is being spun off of the parent brand that's known for its "perfect pants" to become a standalone company early next year, and with that will come a new headquarters-slash-store somewhere downtown.

"The more we looked at it, [we realized] they were two different customers," Bonobos founder and CEO Andy Dunn said to the paper of the two labels. "If we want to unlock both of them with a lot of focus it makes sense for them to be stand-alone brands." Bonobos will be a shareholder in the new company. "It's a mark of success that we can do this," Dunn continued.

"We want to bring this brand together with its own four walls, literally and figuratively," added Maggie Winter, who's stepping up from Ayr brand director to founding CEO and bringing along her current team. "We have proof of concept, demand and distribution, and great product." That includes some pretty great pants of its own, as well as sleeveless jackets.

It sounds like the new downtown space (that's as specific as the paper gets, location-wise) will be a similar set-up to what Ayr has at Bonobos' Chelsea headquarters right now. Its brick-and-mortar presence is pretty limited at the moment — it's available at select Nordstrom stores, and there's a small section for it at the latest Bonobos Guideshop in New York (but in light of this news, probably not for long) — and the company will be putting an emphasis on expanding its team and offering new merchandise categories before it can think about venturing into standalone retail. It's unclear when exactly its departure from Chelsea will take place.