After 20 Years, Alife Is Officially Closing Its NYC Flagship Store
Alife is officially shuttering its New York City flagship store.
Taking to Instagram yesterday, Alife's GM Treis Hill shared the news that the brand was saying goodbye to its brick-and-mortar store on Rivington Street and reflected on the two decades-strong legacies of the location, thanking everyone that "helped make it magic."
“There isn’t a person of influence in streetwear today that has not stepped foot in the shop,” Hill wrote. “It was more than just a retail store, it was a meeting ground for downtown’s youth, it played host to countless live concerts from Drake, Nas, John Mayer, King Krule. It raised a generation of creatives.”
Alife originally started out as an art collective and workshop for its founders and their graffiti writing friends. The crew eventually branched out into the streetwear scene, opening up one of New York’s pioneering high-profile sneaker boutiques, the Alife Rivington Club. Here the label would go on to drop collaborations with the likes of Nike, PUMA, Reebok, and adidas. These splashy collabs and understanding of street culture began to attract a dedicated fanbase as well as high-profile talent, leading Alife to begin hosting concerts in its Rivington space.
Speaking to Uproxx last year, Rob Cristofaro, one of Alife's founders, reflected on the brand’s legacy, including specifically the cultural impact of the Rivington Street store. "It was really just some of the same products that you would find a block over on Delancey Street, just reimagined in this new environment,” Cristofaro said. “So it was really designed to give people an experience where they would walk into this place and be in a totally different world. That was really the thought behind it—to create this environment that was like nothing at the time.”