Claire’s is betting that the next phase of creator commerce will happen both in stores and on screens.
On Thursday, the accessories retailer will debut a roughly 45-piece beauty, jewelry, accessories and collectibles collection with Lana Rae, the YouTube and Roblox creator behind gaming and lifestyle channel Lana’s Life, at VidCon. The assortment will then roll out to 866 of Claire’s 900 stores across the U.S. and Canada on June 30, with 15 styles available through a dedicated page on Claire’s website.
The collaboration builds on Claire’s history of turning young personalities into retail brands. The retailer began selling JoJo Siwa’s signature bows in 2016, helping turn the accessory into a global phenomenon. Siwa said more than 80 million bows had been sold by 2020, with Forbes estimating at least $400 million in retail sales. With Lana Rae, Claire’s is updating that model for Gen Alpha by combining product development and store distribution with VidCon fan experiences and Roblox rewards.
“This is just the beginning,” said Michelle Goad, chief brand officer at Claire’s. “We’re constantly looking for the right voice and the right category to do this with — someone that wants to really connect with this tween and young teen audience [though Claire’s] in a way they can’t do physically anywhere else.”
Goad joined Claire’s in January, several months after the privately held investment firm Ames Watson acquired the retailer’s North American operations and intellectual property out of bankruptcy for $140 million. Claire’s had previously been controlled by a group of creditors, including Elliott Investment Management and Monarch Alternative Capital, following its first Chapter 11 restructuring in 2018.
But that earlier process, which eliminated about $1.9 billion in debt, did not resolve the pressures facing the mall-based chain. By its second bankruptcy filing in August 2025, Claire’s had accumulated roughly $690 million in debt and was contending with declining mall traffic, high rents, growing competition from online and fast-fashion retailers, cautious consumer spending, and higher costs tied to tariffs on Asian imports.
Ames Watson retained much of the North American store network while closing underperforming locations, with plans to modernize the stores, improve the product assortment and rebuild Claire’s relevance with younger consumers. Goad’s remit includes reworking the brand for a customer who is encountering trends through gaming, creators and short-form video at an increasingly young age.
“For us, to win with Gen Alpha, we can’t focus on this 6- to 8-year-old girl that we’ve historically focused on, because she’s just aging up faster, and she has access to more information and content than she ever has,” Goad said.
As a result, Claire’s is now targeting tweens and younger teens while positioning itself as “an inspiring playground for modern girlhood,” she said.
The creator Lana Rae has more than 19 million followers and generated 3.1 billion global views across platforms in 2025, according to information supplied by Claire’s. Her YouTube content averages 8.75 million daily views, while her weekly livestreams attract between 55,000 and 60,000 unique viewers.
Claire’s identified Rae as a possible partner after seeing strong in-store demand for merchandise tied to Dress to Impress, the popular Roblox game with 10.3 billion visits, which she regularly features. “When you dive a little bit deeper, you see there are some voices that are really amplifying that game, and the top one in that world is Lana,” Goad said.
The Lana’s Life collaboration spans beauty, jewelry, hair accessories, toys and collectible Taba Squishies, priced from $7.99-$19.99. Hero products include lip gloss keychains, jelly lip and cheek balms, body mists, faux nails, and DIY squishy kits. Claire’s developed and is the exclusive retailer for the beauty products, while the other categories are part of the wider Lana’s Life merchandise business and are sold through other retailers.
Rae worked with the company to define the assortment and creative direction and personally approved each product. And while Claire’s has declined to disclose the royalty structure, the brand spokesperson said each of its partner agreements is mutually beneficial and customized on a case-by-case basis.
Rae said Claire’s gave her the opportunity to create a full beauty, hair, accessories and toy assortment for her audience. “The age of my audience is the same age I was when I was regularly shopping at Claire’s,” she said in a statement to Glossy.
Goad said the company can offer creators an alternative to launching merchandise solely through social platforms or their own websites.
“We can move really quickly, and we can take on risk and bet on people that aren’t as obvious to the bigger box retailers,” she said. “Our whole mission is to build genuine, mutually beneficial relationships with creators, rather than simply licensing their names for one-off products. So we’re in it together.”
The launch is also designed to connect Rae’s online audience with Claire’s physical stores. Alongside hosting a VidCon booth and a July meet-and-greet at Claire’s Santa Anita store in California, the retailer is offering an exclusive, complimentary Roblox avatar item to the first 8,000 customers who buy a Lana’s Life product in stores.
“The only way to access the other is to actually go in and meet the other’s fans, and that was very intentional for us,” Goad said. “It’s a strategic way to actually get people off their couches just to meet other fans.”
Claire’s has already tested elements of the model through partnerships with creator-led slime brands Dope Slimes (587,000 Instagram followers; 1.9 million TikTok followers) and Peachybbies (1.1 million Instagram followers; 6.4 million TikTok followers). But the Lana launch is broader, combining product, e-commerce, gaming, content and live events across nearly the entire store fleet.
The strategy reflects Gen Alpha’s hybrid shopping habits. According to a 2026 Ulta Beauty study conducted with NielsenIQ, 78% of the cohort discovers beauty online, but most still prefer to shop categories including makeup, fragrance and skin care in stores.
And still, Claire’s piercing business will remain central, Goad said — but the retailer is building on that business.
“Once you’ve been pierced, what is it that Gen Alpha is looking for?” she said. “Our goal is to always have that and really wow her.”
