Boutique jewelry comes to airport

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This article was published 31/03/2009 (5113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

THE sky’s the limit for jewelry designer Hilary Druxman’s newest retail venture.

The Winnipeg Airports Authority Inc. announced Monday that a Hilary Druxman Design boutique is opening Wednesday at Richardson International Airport.

The new 450-square-foot store — Druxman’s second in the city — is located on the second floor of the airport terminal across from the food court seating area.

The addition of a Hilary Druxman boutique is a reflection of the WAA’s ongoing efforts to add a distinctly Manitoba flavour to the airport’s retail lineup.

“We are pleased a Winnipeg-based entrepreneur with an international following is joining our airport retail mix,” WAA president and CEO Barry Rempel said in a written statement.

Hilary Druxman general manager Tracey Young said the firm is equally pleased to be opening at store at the airport.

“Forty to 50 per cent of the customers we get at our McDermot Avenue store are from out of town,” Young said. “So having a store at the airport makes it super convenient for the ones travelling by air.”

It also gives the company a chance to see how well-suited its retail concept is for an airport setting, Young said.

“We thought it would be a great fit. Now we’ll have an opportunity to test it out.”

If the store does well, the company hopefully can land a spot in the new airport terminal that’s scheduled to open in 2010, she added.

The tenants have already been chosen for the nine retail stores and 11 food-and-beverage outlets that will be featured in the new terminal. Their names will be announced within the next few weeks.

However, WAA communications director Christine Alongi said the smaller retail venues in the new terminal — kiosks, vending carts and vending machines — have not yet been filled. So Hilary Druxman could have a shot at one of those, she said.

Although Hilary Druxman’s products are sold in more than 200 stores in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, the company now has only two retail outlets of its own. Both are in Winnipeg.

Young said the company used to have a store in Santa Monica, Calif., but closed it after the rent became too costly. She said it opened a store in Winnipeg’s Exchange District in 2006 to give it more visibility in its hometown, where it designs and manufactures all its jewelry products.

“This (opening a second store) is just building on that,” she said.

Young said the new store features the same kind of display cabinets, lights and fixtures as the downtown outlet.

But unlike the downtown store, which sells both gold and silver jewelry, the new one will carry only silver products .

“We wanted to keep our jewelry accessible (from a pricing point of view),” Young said. “We’re going to have pieces here ranging from $30 and up, with a good majority of (them) in the $50 to $60 range.”

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca