Glossier, beloved brand of millennials and the internet, is going offline for its latest venture.
The beauty company just announced it will be opening seven temporary pop-ups at select Nordstrom locations around the country, including the newest flagship store in New York City, according to CNBC, to promote the brand’s popular Glossier You fragrance—a category that’s notoriously difficult to sell online.
“Fragrance is an extremely personal category—one that people understandably prefer to discover in person—and department stores are the largest channel for fragrance, making up nearly a quarter of all U.S. fragrance sales,” Glossier founder and CEO Emily Weiss told CNBC. “We feel confident that with Nordstrom as our partner, we’ll be able to maintain our extremely high bar for customer experience.” She said her team was also very involved in hiring and training the staff for the pop-ups, so that should be helpful in maintaining the vibe that Glossier fans love.
It won’t be selling its famed dewy skin care or “is she wearing makeup?” makeup at Nordstrom—yet, at least. Although the brand has opened brick-and-mortar locations since its launch. Currently Glossier has two permanent stores in Los Angeles and New York and have operated pop-ups in other cities like London, Miami, and Austin. The Nordstrom fragrance pop-ups will be open from December 3 through February 16 in Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Santa Anita, California, in addition to NYC.
The reactions on social media have been somewhat mixed, but generally positive. “As a former Nordstrom employee (lingerie ?), this partnership to bring Glossier You, our cult-favorite perfume, to seven Nordstrom stores feels poetic. (One of them is the Seattle store where I worked.),” one person tweeted. “I read that glossier finally caved and will be partnering with a major retailer (nordstrom) and i was like ?????? then i realized its for their new fragrance Glossier You,” another wrote.
Who knows if this Nordstrom partnership will lead to future offline ventures for Glossier, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
