Do flagship Apple Stores exist?

By now you’ve heard that Apple will soon open its first store in India at Mumbai’s Jio World Drive, a shopping mall in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). You’ve probably also heard that this won’t be just any old store. No, it’ll be a special store. The kind of store any city would be proud to have. It’ll be a flagship store that carries flagship status. That’s exciting! But there’s one problem. Do flagship Apple Stores actually exist?

I’ll admit it: I’ve been reading and writing about Apple Retail every single day for more than five years, and I can’t figure out what a flagship Apple Store is.

The word “flagship” is loosely used to describe any large and important Apple Store, but usually not by Apple. As far as I can tell, none of their communications regarding Apple BKC actually contained the word “flagship.” It turns out that Apple wisely tries to avoid this modifier altogether, instead opting for more ambiguous but agreeable terms like “significant” and “high profile.” If you search Apple Newsroom for any mention of “flagship” in the retail context, you’ll only find four relevant results that help form a definition.

February 26, 2004 — Apple to Open San Francisco Retail Store on Saturday, February 28

Apple’s first retail store in the city of San Francisco will open in Union Square at One Stockton Street on Saturday, February 28 at 10:00 a.m. PST. The store will be one of Apple’s five flagship stores worldwide, joining flagship stores in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Tokyo.

Ah, five flagship stores worldwide — SoHo, North Michigan Avenue, The Grove, Ginza, and San Francisco. Simple. But that was 2004.

October 19, 2017 — Apple Michigan Avenue opens tomorrow on Chicago’s riverfront

“When Apple opened on North Michigan Avenue in 2003, it was our first flagship store, and now we are back in Chicago opening the first in a new generation of Apple’s most significant worldwide retail locations,” said Angela Ahrendts, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail.

Wait a minute, didn’t Apple SoHo open in 2002? So did The Grove! This isn’t so easy.

It gets even more complicated. Take a look at this 2016 article from TIME:

May 19, 2016 — Apple Never Wants You to Leave its New Store

Five elements make up the future of Apple’s retail operation, Ahrendts said, calling the Union Square shop “the first, largest global flagship and the future of what you will see going forward.”

Global flagship — a new class of store, and Union Square was apparently the first. Is that different than Michigan Avenue, which was the first of the “most significant worldwide retail locations”?

Back to Apple Newsroom now:

December 20, 2017 — Apple reveals plans for Melbourne’s Federation Square

Apple today previewed its planned flagship project in Melbourne’s Federation Square…

That’s not quite the same as the press release published by the Premier of Victoria:

Apple’s investment at Federation Square will be its first Global Flagship store in the southern hemisphere, the second outside the United States, and the fifth worldwide.

Let’s break this down. If the Fed Square project hadn’t been canceled, there would’ve been five “global flagship” locations worldwide, three of which were in the United States. Based on the timeline, that’s Union Square, …Michigan Avenue? …and… Apple Park Visitor Center? I don’t know! What about outside the US? Well, Apple Regent Street reopened in London in 2016. I guess it could be that.

Outside of Apple’s own language, mall press releases, city planning documents, and engineering portfolios use the term flagship liberally, but mostly to dazzle. News articles are quick to repeat the popular sentiment if it catches reader attention. We can cast most of this aside in our quest for the absolute definition. Apple also has a store classification system for deliverables, but this isn’t relevant to the general public.

Then there’s this slide:

This slide is from a public May 17, 2017 Section 106 Consulting Parties Meeting regarding the future of D.C.’s Carnegie Library.

What are the minimum dimensions of a “great hall”? What if a store has “signature architecture” but no plaza? Is it a multi-level store if only the bathrooms are downstairs? What if a store has a great hall AND signature architecture?

If we were to pass Apple Tower Theatre through this filter, it would qualify as a flagship store, not a global flagship. It has no plaza. Meanwhile, Apple Broadway Plaza, Walnut Creek’s cozy little store, would be considered a global flagship. Its roofline is definitely “signature!”

This is all incredibly confusing if you’re deeply invested in Apple Store lore, but at its essence, the word flagship is functioning exactly as intended when used by news publications. It communicates a sense of excitement and significance. It conveys the gravity of the announcement. When readers see the word, they know to expect something big. For the majority of retailers opening new locations, it’s a perfectly durable term.

The problem, then, might be that Apple has essentially broken the modern definition of a flagship store by taking almost every new location above and beyond design expectations. For example, look at Apple Valley Fair or Lenox Square. In a vacuum, either of these architectural feats could pass as a world-class store. They’re the focal point of each mall. But in the larger context of all Apple Retail locations, it’s hard to call Westfield Valley Fair, a suburban mall surrounded by a moat of surface parking in the shadow of a freeway, a world-class city center on par with the likes of London’s Covent Garden. Apple does not play by traditional retail rules.

Apple BKC is coming soon to Mumbai. It’s already shaping up to be one of the most important and impressive openings this year. But will it be a flagship store? I have no idea.

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