A Dutch Parlor on Mercer, Róhe Opens Its First Store
The Amsterdam label trades the cash desk for Japanese tea, Rietveld design and a dressing room with a skylight
There is no cash desk. At 77 Mercer Street, the new home of the Dutch label Róhe, the usual counter has given way to places to sit. Visitors are poured Japanese tea in porcelain cups and invited to linger. It feels less like a shop than a well kept living room that happens to sell clothes.
Róhe opened the SoHo store this month. It is the label's first permanent store, FashionUnited reported this week, and the company picked New York for it rather than Amsterdam. The space measures 221.7 square meters, which works out to roughly 2,390 square feet. A spokesperson told the trade site the store is meant to give the brand a physical home in the United States. According to the brand, New York has become a key market in recent years.
A Label Built on Restraint
Róhe was founded in Amsterdam in 2021 by Marieke Meulendijks and Maickel Weyers. It built its following online, and Vogue notes that it is carried by all the major online retailers. At home in the Netherlands it is stocked by shops including Velour in Amsterdam.
The clothes are quiet in the best way. Vogue's Just Browsing column called it a true wardrobing label, the kind of line where pieces are made to build on each other. Black and white are its most used colors. The house leans on tailoring, draped satin tops, knitwear and leather. A traditional Chinese knot closure, the pankou, has become one of its signatures.
"This city has always stood for curiosity, creativity and endless possibilities," Meulendijks, the founder and creative director, told FashionUnited.
It feels less like a shop than a well kept living room that happens to sell clothes.
The store takes its cue from Huis de Vicq, the brand's headquarters on the Herengracht canal in Amsterdam. Róhe's own team designed the space, with local support from the architecture firm HS2. There are made to order wooden wall panels, natural materials and touches of Dutch design throughout. Vogue credits the bespoke woodwork to the Dutch studio DeanWorks and the porcelain to the Japanese brand Time & Style.
The furniture is collectible. FashionUnited lists pieces by Gerrit Rietveld, Carlo Bartoli, Gervasoni and the Dutch designer Paul Coenen. Vogue adds chairs by Olivier Gagnère and white slipcovered Gervasoni Ghost sofas. Dutch and European art is on display, including classic Dutch paintings.
What Hangs on the Rail
Vogue describes the front quarter of the room as closer to a gallery than a store. The fall and winter collection hangs on one long rail down the left side. Then there are the dressing rooms. The largest has a skylight, a rare luxury in a ground floor space in Manhattan.
The New York store also carries pieces sold only there. Vogue lists a leather blazer, a lace slip skirt and a sculptural metallic dress among these exclusives, which the brand calls Atelier. All of them were made at the Amsterdam headquarters from leftover fabric. A bridal capsule sits in one corner. The Heritage collection, the label's version of a permanent wardrobe, has its own space. A display case mixes vintage silver jewelry with the house's own designs.
Accessories turn up all over the room, from leather gloves to cloches and leopard print pillbox hats. There is also an early look at Róhe's footwear, which is due to launch next spring.
Vogue's fitting room picks for fall lean dark and polished. It singled out black velvet, including a slightly fluted maxi skirt, and trousers with a built in pleated satin waistband that answer the season's cummerbund trend. There is grey tailoring, a micro spot cheetah print in pony hair, aviator leather jackets and relaxed denim. A collarless boucle blazer fits the new ladylike mood.
Why SoHo, Why Now
Mercer Street is not a new address for fashion. We have covered another designer's first New York store on the same street. What sets Róhe apart is pace. The store is built to slow a visitor down, with tea, seating and furniture worth looking at.
Vogue pitched it to a certain kind of uptown woman, the one who already knows the Upper East Side stretch of Toteme, Khaite and The Row, as a reason to come downtown on a weekend. It also works at the other end of the day. Vogue's writer calls a black column skirt her answer to the little black dress for evening, and the velvet and satin on the rail point the same way.
The company says New York is only the start. London and Asia are its next targets, according to FashionUnited, and each new store is meant to bring fashion, art, design and architecture together in a way that suits its city.
For now the experiment lives among the cobblestone streets of SoHo. The tea is poured. The chairs are collectible. And for a label that grew up on screens, the new store makes a simple case. Some clothes need to be seen in person, under a skylight, with time to sit down.
