Martin + Osa

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Martin + Osa (Martin & Osa) is a new store that carries their own branded clothing brand developed by American Eagle Outfitters. The store's name and inspiration comes from Martin and Osa Johnson, a globetrotting husband and wife team from Kansas who explored Africa and the South Pacific Islands, chronicling their travels in photographs and diaries.

The new store will target an older than 25 customer, such as what the brands website claims: "if it looks like it's made for a 20-year-old, we don't make it." The stores themselves will range from 6,500 to 7,500 square feet. The clothing design is being lead by husband and wife team Michele and Charles Martin, who had previously been the design team behind many of the clothing concepts at Abercrombie & Fitch up until the early 1990s. In saying so, they had no part in the image of A&F today.

Five stores were planned to open by the end of 2006 in select malls, with 10 to 15 more stores planning to open in 2007. The first store opened at Tysons Corner Center in McLean, Virginia, on Wednesday, September 6, 2006. The stores are designed by Michael Neumann Architecture in NYC.

Storefronts will have wide entrances, but no windows. Rather than having windows to see inside, the exterior will be covered with wood and a strip of opaque blue glass. Inside the stores will have a natural materials theme, with plenty of wood and stone. Hidden machines spray two different mists that smell of freshly chopped wood. And digital circuits continually dim and raise the lights to mimic a cloud drifting across the store. Slow-moving videos, to be played in four different locations within the store, feature a couple (clearly a fictitious version of Martin and Osa) embarking on a weekend sojourn. She (tall and thin, with long blond hair), clips flowers in the house; he (tall and thin, his head shaven) hooks a sailboat onto the back of a vintage convertible. The active, outdoor theme extends to the clothes.

The archetypal customer is a 30-year-old man or woman, but the new brand expects to attract people aged 25 to 40. The brand's tag line will be "Everyday. Life. Adventures." with a line underneath that reads: "Please dispose of your old clothes properly." The message is meant to encourage buyers to bring in their old clothes to Martin + Osa, which will redistribute them to charities.

The company just recently launched a new eCommerce website at www.martinandosa.com.