Beyond Yoga is stepping out, cutting the ribbon on a bigger store concept in Greenwich, Conn., on Friday and preparing an assortment that really lives up to its name. 

It’s Beyond Yoga’s first brick-and-mortar store on the East Coast and a big moment for the brand, which Levi Strauss & Co. bought in 2021 and which is now being prepped for a growth spurt that would put it into direct competition with Lululemon and Athleta at scale. 

Leading the way is Nancy Green, who oversaw Athleta as it grew from 39 to 175 stores and has been putting that experience to work since becoming Beyond Yoga’s chief executive officer last year. 

Green has been using her own particular blend of art and science to set the brand up for its next step. The arrival in Greenwich, for instance, is no accident. The company knows from its e-commerce business that the greater New York area is its largest market and used that data to guide it to the wealthy enclave. 

“There’s a big intuitive piece to this too,” Green told WWD. “There’s the data on where the bulk of our customer fans are currently, and then there’s intuition. Does that make sense? Does that feel right? Because you can go into a market and there’s multiple places you could open. We’re opening in Boston [this year] and we can see where that customer bubble is in the Boston area. And there’s multiple choices where we could go. We’re going to Seaport because we stand there, we watch, we see our customer walking the streets. 

“The other piece that’s important is, Does the space feel right? That’s also intuitive,” she said. “Maybe it’s not the right location or you need to wait for the right location. We’re not going to go in just because the data shows us that that’s probably where we should be.”

Both sides of Green’s brain aligned on the Greenwich store, a 2,760-foot-space that also has room to hold events and tap into that “wellness-forward lifestyle” customer the brand targets. 

“It’s gorgeous,” Green said. “Light oak floors, very natural elements and a lot of wood, a lot of very organic shapes, curves. The main reason for the larger format is that the line is expanding quite a bit. We needed a larger space to showcase the breadth of the assortment and to really just show the best expression of the brand. We’re also [planning to use] these new spaces as community hubs, whether it’s fitness events that we do in the store, community events, whatever is right for that store. We create very strong local partnerships with various studios.”

The store comes with a new logo and is at the vanguard of a bigger rollout — both in retail and in terms of Beyond Yoga’s assortment, which all includes or ties back to its signature Spacedye fabric. 

While the 20-year-old business has long had workout-ready gear and dresses, the collection has been growing rapidly lately. Puffer jackets were added last year. In August, the assortment reaches out more with wide-leg bottoms, vegan leather, sweaters, cashmere wool blends, varsity-inspired prep looks, styles for the trail and more. 

Beyond Yoga is done tiptoeing and is going even further beyond yoga with more looks that work from the studio to work to the street to the airport and everywhere else. 

“First and foremost, we are a lifestyle brand that serves an active woman and man’s lifestyle,” Green said. “So we think about what are the things that they do? What do they need? Well, it starts with the activities that they do.”

With the Greenwich opening, Beyond Yoga has eight doors and is expanding to 14 by the end of the year. Earlier this year Green said the brand could have “at least 200 stores” over time. 

“This is our 2.0 in stores,” Green said of the Greenwich location. “This is a new concept. We are going to test it and we are going to nail it. We have to iterate and tweak some things as we learn and then we nail it and then we scale it. So test, iterate, nail it and scale it.”