With retail rent prices climbing, pop-up stores are an increasingly attractive prospect for brands looking to expand their physical presence. But for luxury brands, pop-ups present unique challenges: How does one present a premium luxury experience in a temporary space? And how can a brand ensure its high-value goods are secure in a space that isn’t its own?

Over the last week, Glossy spoke with several luxury brands investing in pop-up retail about how they’re setting up temporary stores that provide a luxury experience.

Carol Altieri, the COO of Bob’s Watches, told Glossy that one of the biggest concerns with temporary stores, particularly for luxury goods, is ensuring that security is up to snuff.

“We have had pop-ups where watches were stolen,” she said. “Usually, the vendor is insured and we’re insured, so it’s not a massive catastrophe, but nobody wants to go that route.”

Altieri said watches were stolen from the company’s pop-up store in Manhattan’s Columbus Circle last year, primarily because there were no safes on the premises. In Bob’s Watches’ own stores, the company employs high-security safes to keep products secure both after hours and during operations.

After the Columbus Circle theft, Altieri said the team has been more careful about vetting potential pop-up locations. For example, for its current pop-up in Aspen, Colorado, hosted in partnership with Revolve, Altieri said she checked the security herself and spoke with the store’s manager about the relative safety of the products before it opened.

Altieri said a pop-up store without the same level of security as a permanent location isn’t a dealbreaker, but it does limit the amount of inventory she feels comfortable allocating.

“Losing five watches is one thing, but losing 50 watches is another,” she said.

The extra security that a temporary location for luxury goods needs adds to the cost of opening a pop-up, which, in turn, affects the overall calculus of opening one, according to John Shmerler, newly appointed CEO of watch retailer the 1916 Company.

“We’ve certainly had our share of security issues,” Shmerler said. “Overnight burglary attempts, mainly. Our product is valuable and portable, so it’s attractive to bad guys. It’s a high dollar investment to employ and train our own security team, but it’s worth it to protect the product and, more importantly, our employees.”

Trevor Hardy, CMO of the luxury menswear brand Orlebar Brown, said that, in expensive markets, even luxury brands struggle with the financials of pop-ups.

“The challenge for us with pop-ups has always been about making something that feels quality and not just a temporary, kind of ramshackle experience?” Hardy said. “Some brands like Prada or Jacquemus seem to have infinite money and they do these pop-ups that look like the most luxurious thing. That’s not easy.”

Hardy said, despite its Chanel ownership, Orlebar Brown is a retail brand that doesn’t have infinite resources, so its pop-ups need to be cost-effective and profitable to justify their existence. That typically necessitates pop-ups that are created in partnership with established retail brands and in established locations.

Last month, Orlebar Brown became part of a mobile pop-up hosted by Bal Harbour Shops that began in North Carolina before moving to Florida. The pop-up is contained in 30 shipping containers that are trucked around the country, something that would have been difficult to do without the joint participation of brands like Cremieux and Tiffany & Co.

Sarah Davis, founder and president of the luxury accessories resale company Fashionphile, said her company has similarly had success by attaching a pop-up to an established business or location. In 2019, when Barneys New York was closing stores, Fashionphile took over Barneys’ Carlsbad outlet store as a pop-up shop for the four-month interim period before Michael Kors took over the location permanently. That allowed Fashionphile to invest only a few tens of thousands of dollars into the store, rather than the hundreds of thousands it may have cost to set up its own store location. Fashionphile is currently hosting a three-month pop-up in the Irvine Spectrum shopping center in California.

“Most of our pop-ups have been longer term,” Davis said. “Six months in Row DTLA, six months in Fred Segal. We had a pop-up that lasted a few years in a Fred Segal store. We don’t do them for just a few days. We can’t justify the expenses for a weekend’s worth of business. It’s really expensive. If you want to actually make money off of a pop-up, you need to invest time.”

But there are a few brands that can get away with hosting short-term pop-ups in out-of-the-way locations. Davis pointed to a 2022 Louis Vuitton x Nike pop-up hosted in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, which doubled as the final exhibit of designs by Virgil Abloh. People went out of their way to visit it even though it wasn’t in a heavily trafficked shopping destination, she said.

“My son begged me to take him to that,” Davis said. “If you’re Louis Vuitton and Nike, you can host a pop-up wherever you want and people will come to it.”

Fashionphile is buying and selling more brands

Fashionphile added several new brands to its catalog this week. While it has long bought and sold handbags from brands including Chanel and Hermès, Davis exclusively told Glossy that the company has newly begun buying and selling bags and accessories from luxury favorites Phoebe Philo, Khaite, Jacquemus, The Row, Chrome Hearts and Loro Piana.

These brands represent the latest generation of highly coveted handbags. Davis said Fashionphile’s internal data and regular conversations with customers made it clear that these brands were obvious choices for expanding the catalog.

“People are basically beating down the door for Phoebe [Philo], in particular,” Davis said.

She added that how a brand performs on the resale market is a good indicator of the strength of the brand, in general. Phoebe Philo’s handbags and other accessories are currently selling on Fashionphile for close to their retail price.

Other brands recently added to Fashionphile’s catalog include Rimowa luggage and Tag Heuer watches. While more brands will likely be introduced eventually, Davis said it’s been her philosophy to expand slowly, allowing the company’s team to build up expertise on a brand before trying to buy and sell it.

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