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Dior is betting on brick-and-mortar retail to keep its beauty business’ momentum, and the brand is starting in New York.
The prestige brand is opening its first U.S. retail door in New York’s SoHo on Wednesday.
It’s the first in a rat-a-tat cadence of openings into next year, which will include a store in Canada as well as locations in other key markets in California and Florida. The move is part of a broader effort to further brand equity with consumers in North America.
“Our North Star is brand desirability, and building Christian Dior Parfums into the most desirable, number-one, leading luxury fashion beauty house in the U.S. We’ve set out some very clear strategic priorities around building that and securing leadership in all key categories,” said Charlotte Holman Ros, president of North America of Christian Dior Parfums.
Among those is retail. “We’re on a journey to transform our retail network and retail business, which is at the heart of that [strategy].”
Holman Ros said the stores will “offer the truest, purest expression of the brand,” and although they’ve existed in other international geographies, New York made sense given the brand’s history. “New York was really the birthplace of Dior in the U.S. market. He opened his first boutique here in 1948,” she said. “New York is not just a key market, but it goes back to our DNA and history.”
The space emphasizes higher-priced items, including the highest ends of its offerings across categories. Those include the Rouge Premiere lipstick range, which is priced at $530, and the L’Or de Vie skin care range, which starts at $680. In the front window is La Collection Privée, Dior’s luxe fragrance collection, which starts at $330.
The Dior Trunk of Dreams Limited Edition Advent Calendar, a seasonal limited-edition item available in the boutique, retails for $4,400. On the other end of the price spectrum, core products like Dior Sauvage and Miss Dior fragrances, as well as the TikTok-viral Lip Glow Oil, will also be available.
Part of the move was to capitalize on the synergies between Dior’s fashion and beauty businesses. The new store, situated at 109 Greene Street, is a stone’s throw from existing men’s and women’s fashion boutiques. It’s around the corner from Chanel’s Atelier Beauté Chanel, and counts nearby outposts from The Ordinary, Byredo, Glossier and Aesop as neighbors.
“Dior always considered himself a perfumer as much as a couturier, and the link between the two sides of our house is stronger than ever,” Holman Ros said. “This [beauty] boutique is adjacent to our fashion boutique, and we can therefore offer the client the full world of Dior.”
As reported, perfumes and cosmetics posted 3 percent gains in the quarter ending Sept. 30 for parent company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, while the conglomerate’s fashion and leather goods division dipped 5 percent.
Other markets, such as the Middle East and China, have more “advanced and mature” beauty boutique networks, Holman Ros said, “and an increasingly strong boutique footprint across key cities in Europe.” Many of those learnings abroad will be applied Stateside — adapted for the U.S. consumer.
“We’ve developed our standards in clienteling services; skin care, makeup and fragrance consultation, and we will be importing the best of those strategies,” Holman Ros said. “We know that the U.S. client is exceptional, and our services will be adapted to the client in SoHo with flash services like little makeup touch-ups and haute parfumerie consults. We’re putting the client at the center of how we bring our boutique strategy to life in the U.S.”
The merchandising strategy will shift, though the initial focus is on the brand’s fragrance business. As reported, Dior Sauvage is the top-selling prestige fragrance in the U.S. market.
“There is a very strong focus on perfumery and couture savoir-faire,” she said. “The opening concept is around the Dior Ball of Dreams, which is our holiday theme for 2024, and pays tribute to Christian Dior’s appreciation of the Château de Versailles.”
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