Eyewear brand Moscot opens new headquarters and flagship store in New York

Moscot is a household name in New York eyewear. It was founded over 106 years ago and is now recognised as a global brand, though it still remains a proud neighbourhood optician’s store. On November 20, Moscot inaugurated new headquarters, but to underline its local roots it opened them once again in Manhattan's Lower East Side, at 94 Orchard Street, in a building bought by the Moscot family.

Moscot opened its first store in 1915 at 94 Rivington Street, and has now moved right at the end of the block, at an address that bears the original store’s same house number - it was simply meant to be. The new premises extend over 1,800 m2 and are home to a flagship store, the optician’s laboratory and the brand’s headquarters.

“Every [Moscot] generation before mine had always dreamed of owning a small property on Orchard Street, and we are proud for having achieved this goal after more than a century,” said CEO Harvey Moscot in a press release.

The new Moscot flagship showcases the brand’s full eyewear range, in addition to assorted bric-a-brac, vintage furniture and knick-knacks (tchotchkes) from the family archives. The store’s interiors feature the tin ceilings that are a signature trait of Lower Manhattan’s period architecture, and tribute is paid to great-grandmother Sylvia Moscot, whose picture is printed on the reusable canvas totes provided with each purchase.

Moscot currently operates 16 monobrand stores worldwide, including flagships in New York City, London, Rome, Milan, Paris, Seoul and Tokyo. In addition to the new Orchard Street address, Moscot indicated that it is pushing ahead with its retail expansion, and will open two new stores by the end of 2021, in Toronto and Copenhagen.

Moscot was founded in 1915 as a neighbourhood store in the heart of New York City, on the corner of Delancey Street and Orchard Street, by Hyman Moscot, who came to the USA from Eastern Europe in 1899, landing at Ellis Island. Hyman began selling hand-crafted eyeglasses on the streets, pushing a wooden cart that is still featured in the logo of the brand, whose other distinctive feature is the stores’ bright yellow colour. Moscot is now led by Harvey Moscot, an optometrist by training, a member of the founding family's fourth generation. The fifth generation is already active in the firm through Harvey's son, Zack Moscot, the brand’s creative director.

Moscot produces over 100,000 pairs of eyeglasses annually at a factory with 150 workers in the Chinese province of Guangdong. It has international offices in Lugano, Switzerland, and Hong Kong, and distributes its collections via the wholesale channel to some 1,900 stores, between multibrand retailers, independent opticians and fashion stores. The Lemtosh is Moscot’s most popular eyeglasses model.

Eyewear brand Moscot opens new headquarters and flagship store in New York

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