Cole Haan is celebrating its 600th store opening Thursday by heading back to Boston — in the heart of Back Bay at the upscale Prudential Center.
The location features the latest iteration of an updated store design — and it spans 2,000 square feet.
It’s also one of the few stores that includes a new shoe fitting experience called the Cole Haan Fit lab, using AI technology from Aetrex. Other stores offering the Fit lab include the Flatiron store on Fifth Ave. at 19th St., the Roosevelt Field store on Long Island, and the recently opened Disney Springs location.
The new store design, which has been used for some stores overseas, was first introduced to the U.S. market last week when the brand opened its new store at Disney Springs in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.
In an exclusive interview, Ray Etzo, the brand’s vice president of North America Retail, said there are about 110 Cole Haan stores in North America across the U.S. and Canada. For now, only the two new doors are showcasing the updated design in the U.S. market.
Boston is particularly special for the brand, given its New England roots. Cole Haan had former offices in Yarmouth, Maine, and its headquarters in Greenland, N.H. The brand previously had a store on Newbury St. but closed the location in 2021.
“We’ve been trying to get back into Boston for some time now,” Etzo said. “The Prudential Center really offers us year-round shopping and it better meets our needs in terms of throughways [similar to] Rockefeller Center or the World Trade Center [or] Pentagon City [where] these transportation hubs really bode well for Cole Haan.”
According to Etzo, the new design has a “feminine touch” to provide an atmosphere where the interior — with more curves and archways — and a softer, sensory visual flow for the store that’s more tactile in experience. It also relies on warm colors in the interiors that are generally more inviting to create an inclusive and welcoming environment, one that allows for improved lifestyle storytelling. The store concept also takes localization into account, where elements inside the store, such as artwork, speak to the local culture and music.
The merchandise mix is evenly balanced between men’s and women’s, with footwear about 85 percent and the balance in apparel and accessories to round out Cole Haan’s full look of as a global, lifestyle brand.
Specific to North America, Cole Haan footwear — the collection includes dress shoes, sneakers, golf shoes, sandals, loafers and hybrids using premium leathers that feel like dress shoes but have sneaker components for comfort — makes up a bigger percentage of the overall assortment mix.
As for the real estate strategy, Etzo said the brand continuously looks for the “best center or the best real estate locations that fit our consumer [and] where the consumer is shopping digitally.” Since 2023 when it had 500 stores, Cole Haan has opened an additional 100 doors globally.
Over the next six months, Cole Haan is planning to open locations in Westchester, N.Y., Sarasota, Fla., and NorthPark Center, Dallas, Tex. The brand will continue to look for strategic locations and opportunities over the course of 2027 and beyond.
Separately, in this year’s L.E.K. Brand Heat Index, Cole Haan ranked third among the top 10 in men’s dress footwear.
