Does a retail beauty market in which where Sephora and Ulta already occupy much of the brick and mortar bandwidth have room for another player? Fast-growing fashion retailer Forever 21 believes it does, and has partnered with Chicago-based S&P 500 retail real estate company GGP Inc. to launch Riley Rose, a new beauty boutique concept.

Having opened the first Riley Rose store on Sept. 30 at the Glendale Galleria in Los Angeles, GGP and Forever 21 have big plans through the end of the year. The online portal rileyrose.com will come online in mid-December, followed by a string of additional shops that will open their doors in Towson, MD; Pembroke Pines, FL; Altamonte Springs, FL; Bridgewater, NJ; Chicago, IL; Wauwatosa, WI; San Antonio, TX; and Frisco, TX.

“We have created Riley Rose to appeal to the Millennial and Gen Z customer who follows trends and likes to curate her personal brand through beauty and lifestyle products. She is hungry to be first to embrace budding trends, and wants access to of-the-moment products she sees on social media at the pace of a snap,” Linda Chang, co-founder of Riley Rose, told Happi.

Stores will stock an array established and newcomer brands in beauty and hair care including B. by Banila, Babe Scrub, Beauty Bakerie, bkr, Briogeo, Dedcool, essie, Eva NYC, House of Lashes, Huxley, Laura Geller, Tony Moly, Too Cool For School and Winky Lux, to name just a few.

Forever 21 and GGP plan to open additional Riley Rose locations and expand their brand selection in the new year.
“Our plan for 2018 is continue to open more mall locations nationwide while continuing to build our e-commerce site. We are also looking to include more international and new brands in or store based on what our valued-customers and followers want to see,” said Chang.

 In addition, executives want to make the store a platform for undiscovered brands.

“Riley Rose will make under the radar and up and coming brands more accessible to consumers,” Chang said. Chang also pointed out the store’s “unique” price range. Products will retail for anywhere between $1.90 to $189 as Riley Rose will stock everything from single-use sheet masks to higher-end gift sets and bundles.

Millennials and Gen Z are big into beauty, but Riley Rose is competing against Sephora and Ulta, not to mention Sally, Target, CVS and Walgreens.

Chang is confident that Riley Rose will flourish.         

“What sets Riley Rose apart from other namesake beauty stores such as Sephora or Ulta, is that the store will be interactive, encouraging the customer to test every product, use the touch-screens to guide them to their perfect beauty regimen and post to their social platforms at the in-store selfie wall,” she concluded.