This new brand mixes lifestyle, design and fashion because customers will be able to do their shopping, but also attend exhibitions and try on clothes.
It’s not for now in France since cannabis is illegal there, but in New York, where its recreational use has been authorized since March 2021, a luxury boutique specializing in cannabis-based products has just opened. . Its name: Gotham, like the nickname given to New York by the writer Washington Irving in the 19th century. 260 square meters for shopping in lower Manhattan, not far from Katz’s Delicatessen, the famous restaurant where Meg Ryan demonstrates her acting skills in When Harry Met Sally.
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If in the United States, there is already the chain MedMen, described as the Apple Store of cannabis, Gotham is inspired by Europe, partly by Colette, the famous and defunct Parisian clothing store. There is a tree sculpture right in the middle of the store with a bench to sit on. The second floor will host exhibitions. But it is on the first floor that the products are sold. Top quality products, we are assured, as well as pre-rolled joints to edibles.
But difficult at first glance to know what is sold: very few visual references to marijuana in the shop, the bongs look like vases. A desired design, because the store also emphasizes lifestyle, design and fashion, so clothes are part of the purchasing options. Employees are there for personalized assistance if needed with private cabins. And Gotham should soon offer home deliveries.
A store that wants to work for social justice
The one behind the project is called “serial entrepreneur” : Joanne Wilson has invested in a hundred companies, luxury food brands for example, such as Food52, Blue Bottle Coffee or Sweet Loren’s. Fast Company also describes her as “iconic dean of Tech in New York”. She remembers smoking marijuana for the first time around the age of 14, and she has been interested in the market since 2016. She even financed a start-up that the New York Times qualified as“Hermes of Marijuana”.
And then, since the recreational use of cannabis has been legal in New York since 2021 – but still banned at the federal level, which puts off some investors elsewhere, she took action. “I wanted to change the narrative around cannabis, reimagine the market”, she says. She then thought of a store where you feel at home. Above all, she wanted a real store, because the bankruptcy of many businesses during the Covid saddened her.
Gotham’s ambition is also to work for social justice: it is difficult to determine the limit between sincerity and marketing, but the store collaborates with an association called Strive and will give it part of its income. Strive denounces long-repressive cannabis laws, which have disproportionately affected black and Hispanic minorities. It therefore seeks, especially now that the laws have changed, to help those who have been victims of this system, by helping with their reintegration through employment in particular. 85,000 people have already benefited from its services.