It’s finally here! On Saturday September 30, your favorite trendy and affordable clothing store opened up its own glamorous beauty store that some are calling Barbie’s Dream House. The daughters of Forever 21’s founders, Linda and Esther Chang, have expanded the store’s beauty section into it’s own store called Riley Rose, which made it’s debut at the Glendale Galleria in Glendale, California.
At last Thursday's media launch event Linda said, “We’ve been fortunate to travel around the world and see a lot of products and different concepts, and we felt like the U.S. was missing some of this stuff.” This gives larger beauty retailers such as Sephora and Ulta Beauty the ultimate competition. Riley Rose is booming fast, as they are expecting to open another 10 stores this year and another three stores in the upcoming year of 2018.
The store is said to carry about 200 brands, and only about 80 of those brands will be beauty. Some of those brands include Essie, Sigma Beauty, and Laura Geller, none of which you can purchase online, forcing consumers to physically come into their stores to buy products. The items will be rotating on the basis of popularity to give costumers a chance to discover new and different brands each time they visit. Along with their great variety of beauty brands, PETA tells us “Riley Rose will be selling at least a few of our favorite cruelty-free brands: Brite Organix, Lime Crime, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics, and Stila.” In contrast to Forever 21, Riley Rose will carry products that range in price starting as low as $2 to as high as $189.
So what are the other 120 brands? Accompanying the beauty products are sections that include accessories and home goods. In the store you can find an assortment of different items such as candy, bath bombs, mugs, gold kitchenware, Bkr Bottles, phone cases, fake succulents and even a stationary section filled with glitter pens and journals. They are also tech-friendly, featuring iPads with beauty tutorials in the center of the store as well as a live feed that shows your images when you tag Riley Rose on your social media. The store provides selfie stations throughout to encourage an interactive feel and social media posting.
Linda tells Refinery 29, “We know our customer can open her phone and research anything she sees in our store within seconds, and we embrace this reality by empowering her to explore our offerings through digital and social moments throughout the store." This digital twist really is a new concept that provides some great competition to other beauty stores.
You can follow them on their Instagram account and website to get their latest updates on this glamorous new store.
[Image via RileyRose.com]