After 14 years in Harvard Square, women’s clothing store Anthropologie closes its 48 Brattle St. location Jan. 16, according to corporate parent URBN, and expects to vacate the space by the end of the month.
Anthropologie carries small inventories of apparel, accessories, intimates, home furniture, décor, beauty, garden and bridal goods. A sister chain to Urban Outfitters and Free People, it was founded in 1992 and has grown to more than 200 storefronts globally. Along with Cambridge, the chain leaves locations such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Toronto in January. In a filing at the end of November, the parent company said it had closed 11 retail locations in 2024 among all its brands but opened 36, including closing four Anthropologies and opening nine.
A message was left last week with Anthropologie’s parent company inviting comment, but there was no reply.
The store never because a member of the Harvard Square Business Association, said Denise Jillson, HSBA executive director. There is a corporate policy that discourages or does not allow individual locations to become members of the chambers of commerce or business associations, Jillson surmised, and a resulting lack of dialogue leaves its reasons for leaving unknown.
An Urban Outfitters opened In Harvard Square in 1979 and lasted until 2019, closing ahead of construction in what is now known as the Abbot Building. A Free People opened on Church Street in 2011 but was also gone in 2019.
Jillson suspects the Anthropologie must have seen a decline in sales or an unmet potential in the square. If store revenue was robust, she said, it would not be leaving.
Anthropologie came to Cambridge in 2010, replacing a Crate & Barrel that had stood as a pillar in the neighborhood retail for three decades, from 1979 until its closing in 2009. The Brattle Street location is the only Cambridge storefront for the “global lifestyle brand,” with the nearest alternative location being on Newbury Street in Boston, across the Charles River.
From the HSBA’s perspective, Anthropologie never became an anchor in Harvard Square the way some stores do. Anchors tend to be entertainment venues and experiences that are not accessible on smartphones like online retail, Jillson said.
The lack of variety of men and children’s goods in Anthropologie might have been part of the problem, Jillson said.
“It’s definitely a place for women,” said Julie Mahdavi, who handles e-commerce orders and manages back stock for the store, “either women with their friends, or women to drag their husbands or boyfriends that sit there and they do their fashion show.”
Still, the store is the reason a lot of women walk into the square, which makes the closing “demoralizing,” said Mahdavi, who joined Anthropologie in November 2023 upon returning to Cambridge after three years in Paris. She often found herself at the store any time she was in Harvard, as it’s one that has “everything you need” in a colorful, creative and friendly environment.
Many workers were surprised by a one-month closing notice. “But at the same time, I think we weren’t even thinking about our jobs, to be honest,” Mahdavi said. “We were like, ‘But what about the square?’ – which is kind of weird, but that’s where my head went, and that’s where two of my colleagues’ heads went.”
The store’s workers are close, Mahdavi said, but will likely have to disperse to other locations – there are also Anthropologies in Boston’s Seaport District, Newton, Burlington, Dedham and Lynnfield – or find other work.
Jillson said she does not yet know what is next for the space on Brattle, but said it would be “wonderful” to have more retail, “something dynamic and community oriented” like the new Lovestruck Books next door, a store the association is “delighted with.”
Mahdavi said people will “really miss” the store’s window designs – the elaborate compositions the Anthropologie chain is known for – which pair particularly well with the award-winning, five-story 1968 glass-front building that acts as a colossal “display case,” as architectural critic Robert D. Campbell Jr. told the Harvard Crimson in 2008.
The store’s departure opens up three floors of that jewel-case architecture to be filled by building owner Bill Poorvu, an emeritus adjunct professor in entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School.
“If it’s not replaced by another retailer, I think the morale is going to be shot,” Mahdavi said.
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Can we just jump to the end and have Target move there?
This piece omits an important part of the history of both 48 Brattle Street and also Harvard Square.
The marvelous glass-enclosed building at 48 Brattle Street was originally the headquarters for “Design Research” (“D/R”), another once-prominent retail chain that is no longer with us.
Design Research was founded by architect and modernist Benjamin Thompson — at the time a faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
The founder of Crate & Barrel, Gordon Segal, was a follower of Mr. Thompson and jumped at the opportunity move a branch of Crate & Barrel into 48 Brattle Street after it was vacated by D/R.
When I moved to Boston in 1974, the Design Research store joined the many bookstores and record stores that made Harvard Square a frequent destination during those years. I spent many lovely afternoons in the building — D/R was one of the few retail stores that I enjoyed simply being in. I still have some Marimekko prints that were a signature item of the store back then.
While I’m sorry to see Anthropologie close, it was always a step down from its predecessors. I’m not surprised at its passing.
I join the community in hoping for another vibrant destination like D/R or Crate & Barrel for this marvelous building.
Anthropologie was one of the only remaining destination shops in Harvard Square, if only for a certain set, and it did a terrific job with its colorful window displays. It leaves big shoes that may well go unfilled. This dismissive attitude toward its closing by some is undeserved.
save the building along with A.R.T. representing the great mid-century movement Harvard had embraced and put the square on the map.
Good ridance.
oops, ‘riddance.’