This week, I looked into the spate of perfume stores opening in New York and across the globe. Additionally, Puig shakes up its C-suite with a new CEO and CFO, and both L’Oréal and Estée Lauder have their eye on the Indian beauty market.
Why monobrand perfume stores are taking over New York’s shopping districts
On Thursday, Seoul-based perfume brand Nonfiction will debut a boutique on Orchard Street in New York City’s Lower East Side. For the Korean perfumer, the space marks its first North American storefront. For local perfume fans, it joins a long, still-growing list of monobrand perfume stores that have descended on the city in recent months.
In October, the Estée Lauder Companies took not one but four storefronts along Prince Street in Soho, where it opened a row of stores for its perfume and beauty brands Jo Malone, Frédéric Malle, Tom Ford and Kilian. Omani perfumer Amouage opened its first New York store a block away, on Spring Street, that same month. And there are still more to come — the namesake perfume line from French couturier Marc-Antoine Barrois is slated to open a boutique in Soho in Spring 2026, while Kering-backed Matiere Premiere also has an eye on a New York outpost to join its fleet of new stores in Paris, London and Berlin.
While snagging high-end real estate in key shopping districts like Soho or the Upper East Side comes at a steep price — commercial real estate can rent for $800-$1,000 per square foot on Fifth Avenue — an address in Soho or Madison Avenue is a crucial marker for perfume brands to legitimize themselves as a luxury player.
“After Covid, there’s this drive to be seen as having some level of brick-and-mortar that is in a high-end area,” said Bryan Sullivan, partner at Early Sullivan Wright Gizer & McRae LLP. “Newer brands might be raising a lot of money and taking on debt in order to make that launch, so they have that cachet. And the more established brands look at it as kind of a crowning achievement, showing that they have made it to the elite luxury levels.”
Opening a store of its own can also offer a brand a more secure channel to reach consumers at a time when the status of high-end North American department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus remains uncertain, and shelf space at remaining department giants grows more competitive. That’s true for all beauty and fashion categories, but particularly for fragrance: Even with buying perfume online more accessible than ever, 75% of fragrance sales in the U.S. still happen in stores.
“It all goes back to brand experience. And when perfume is sold in department stores and multi-brand retailers, it’s hard to control the environment. You’re also competing with [other brands],” said Queenie Lo, president of spatial at design and strategy agency FutureBrand. “A few large department stores are also no longer there. So how do [brands] also become visibly available to the consumer?”
But finding the right location is half the bottle. Nonfiction’s Orchard Street location — with neighbors including local fashion brands like Bode and Sandy Liang, and long-running multi-brand perfume boutique Aedes — speaks to a young, fashion-forward crowd. Amouage and Tom Ford storefronts in nearby Soho, meanwhile, may draw more moneyed tourists visiting flagships by the likes of Prada and Chanel.
“If you want to be luxury, you have to look like luxury,” said Sullivan.
When a permanent address isn’t available, pop-ups and activations are a valuable way to test the waters, including outside of major shopping hubs like New York and Los Angeles. U.K. functional perfume brand Vyrao collaborated with architectural firm OMA on a Mercer Street pop-up in October; in April, Le Labo will open its eleventh “Le Labo on Wheels” pop-up concept in Savannah, Georgia.
“A lot still can be done with activations and collaborations. Maybe it’s a capsule reveal at a very special hotel,” said Lo. Some of those partnerships can be permanent; in February, LVMH-owned perfume and beauty brand Guerlain opened a store within the newly renovated Waldorf Astoria.
“But to show up in a permanent brick-and-mortar is the ultimate expression point, in terms of how to really talk about the brand experience,” Lo said. “And by going into real estate, they follow the same fashion cues. You know that a certain clientele is seeing you there, and therefore, it’s the perception, it’s marketing.”
Executive moves:
- Puig appoints Jose Manuel Albesa as CEO, replacing Marc Puig as the top executive at the Spanish conglomerate. Puig will retain his role as executive chairman. Albesa, who was most recently deputy CEO, joined Puig in 1998. The owner of Charlotte Tilbury and Byredo also appointed vp of corporate controlling and investor relations Miquel Angel Serra as chief financial officer of Puig, succeeding Joan Albiol, who has held the role since 2009.
- CoverGirl and Kylie Cosmetics owner Coty adds five new board members. The new appointees include former Rea.deeming Beauty president Carsten Fischer, former president of Asia at Sephora Alia Gogi and former Campari CEO Robert Kunze-Concewitz. Gordon von Bretten has stepped down from the board to serve as Coty’s president of consumer beauty.
News to know:
- Puig and The Estée Lauder Companies are considering a merger. On Monday, the Spanish company shared that it is in talks with the American cosmetics giant to potentially merge their businesses.
- Deciem is relaunching The Chemistry Brand. The developer behind The Ordinary originally discontinued the brand in 2022 and will relaunch it in April by bringing back its Hand Chemistry hand cream.
- L’Oréal’s India division is slated to acquire a majority stake in Indian beauty startup Innovist. The Indian beauty company owns brands such as Bare Anatomy, Chemist at Play, Sunscoop and Vinci Botanicals. The potential acquisition, estimated to be worth $450 million, comes almost a month after rival beauty conglomerate the Estée Lauder Companies acquired Indian skin-care brand Forest Essentials.
Stat of the week:
53% of Gen Z consumers say they are spending more on beauty products now than they were a year ago, according to Tinuiti’s 2026 Beauty Marketing Study. Half of millennials reported spending more on beauty now than a year ago, compared with 40% of Gen X consumers and 25% of baby boomers.
In the headlines:
Miuccia Prada is worth $4.8 billion. Not all malls are struggling. “We knew people would love it and people would hate it” — the Lipstick Lesbians get real about Leaked Labs. The e-nose knows: AI learns to smell.
Listen in:
On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner sits down with Kim van Haaster, founder of Bloomeffects, to discuss the brand’s seven-year journey to Ulta Beauty.
Need a Glossy recap?
Inside Sephoria’s return to Los Angeles this weekend. After exiting CVS, dermatologist-founded Fig.1 heads to Sephora. Macy’s, Inc. is looking to leverage AI ahead of a cautious outlook for 2026. Wellness Briefing: How top UK wellness brand Ancient + Brave is cracking the U.S. market one city at a time, plus news
