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Dive Brief:
Direct-to-consumer framing retailer Framebridge opened its first two California stores Saturday in Palo Alto and Santa Monica, according to a press release.
With its first stores on the West Coast, the custom framing retailer now has 38 stores across 15 states, with plans for more.
Four additional locations are set to open in California in October. They will be located in Berkeley, and the Los Angeles areas of Studio City, Larchmont and West 3rd Street.
Dive Insight:
The California store openings have been a long time in the making for Frambridge, which launched as a DTC brand in 2014. Frambridge opened its first brick-and-mortar store in 2019 in Washington, D.C.
“This is a huge milestone for Framebridge and one that we’ve been working towards since we opened our first store,” Susan Tynan, founder and CEO of Framebridge, said in a statement. “California is one of our biggest markets and a state that is full of creativity, inspiration, and culture, and we can’t wait to see what people will bring into frame.”
Grand opening celebrations last weekend in the two California stores included 8×10 print giveaways of the Palo Alto Baylands from local artist Rebekah Laffoon and the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica by Los Angeles artist John Banh.
Most Frambridge stores today are located along the East Coast, with a couple elsewhere, including its first store in Texas that opened last year in Austin.
As part of its commitment to retail expansion in the West, Framebridge also opened a 37,000-square-foot framing studio in Henderson, Nevada. The facility adds to the brand’s manufacturing studios located in Richmond, Kentucky, and Winchester, Virginia.
The accelerated expansion of brick-and-mortar stores came after the company was sold in 2020 to Graham Holdings for an undisclosed amount.