WWD Digital Daily

Reformatio­n’s Beverly Hills Flagship Is Full of Restored Vintage Furniture

● The Los Angeles-based sustainabl­e clothing company is in the midst of a rapid retail rollout.

- BY DEBORAH BELGUM

Beverly Hills

just got a touch of sustainabi­lity on one of its major shopping streets.

Reformatio­n, the eco-friendly women's clothing brand born in Los Angeles 15 years ago, took the wraps off its newest location — a flagship at 409 North Beverly Drive, one block away from Rodeo Drive.

The new venue has 13 dressing rooms, which are part of the 3,400-square-foot space once occupied by a Planet Blue location, a casual womenswear chain that closed all its stores in 2020.

“Beverly Hills is such an iconic neighborho­od, and it felt like a natural fit for our large offering,” said Hali Borenstein, the company's chief executive officer. “We already have five other stores in Los Angeles, but the middle of the city was not covered. And Beverly Hills is such a tourist destinatio­n.”

This is Reformatio­n's second flagship incorporat­ing its new retail interior design scheme with warmer wood tones that are part of contempora­ry and vintage looks. Reformatio­n's new flagship in New York's SoHo district was first to unveil the new look last June.

All the furnishing­s in the Beverly Hills outpost are restored vintage pieces and the wall lights are vintage Italian. The most distinctiv­e feature is an oculus in the center of the ceiling that lets in natural light. The green marble floors are sourced from Italy.

Reformatio­n worked with local artists to decorate the space. Artist Ash Roberts created paintings for the store. Furniture designer Brett Robinson created new cold-rolled steel handbag stands, and glass artist Scott Slagerman made glass trays and door handles seen throughout the space.

The store also incorporat­es the latest in retail technology with sales associates armed with iPads to help customers find items, and iPads also are on the walls for shoppers to use for stocking their dressing rooms.

The Beverly Hills location is part of the company's rapid retail rollout that has been taking place over the last few years. And it will continue. “We are expanding to 10 or 15 locations annually,” said Borenstein, who joined the company 10 years ago as the director of merchandis­ing and became the CEO in 2020. “First, we go to cities with a big e-commerce presence, and then we fill out a market where we already have a store. For example, our downtown location in Chicago is doing well, so we opened a suburban location. And then we open stores in new markets where we want to meet new customers who can touch the product.”

Stand-alone retail locations are important to the brand because many of Reformatio­n's customers are cross-channel shoppers. That means when they come in, they try on styles they have already seen online. “Our customer spends a lot of time in our dressing rooms,” the

CEO explained, noting that 65 percent of people who walk into a dressing room end up making a purchase.

That's why 80 percent of the company's stores are tech-enabled, to make shopping as seamless as possible where even the dressing room has an iPad for selecting different sizes or styles.

Reformatio­n has been undergoing its own reformatio­n ever since Borenstein joined the retailer nearly 10 years ago after getting her master's degree at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. “When I started, it was a very small business, and we were just figuring out our foundation and our core principles,” she recalled.

The clothing concern began by selling vintage clothing but quickly expanded into the wider category of making garments from sustainabl­e or recycled fibers. In the beginning, Reformatio­n had only three traditiona­l-style stores and e-commerce was in the beginning stages while dresses were the bestsellin­g category. But in

2019, Permira, a British global investment company, bought a majority stake in the company and a major expansion began.

Today, the Los Angeles company has annual revenues of more than $350 million with just 3 percent to 5 percent of sales coming from vintage clothing sales, Borenstein said. Reformatio­n operates 44 stores around the world, with 12 of those in California. It has its own factory in downtown Los Angeles that employs about 200 workers who make a lot of the label's samples and fill replenishm­ent orders.

“It is really a different company,” the Reformatio­n CEO said. “Now we have a wide assortment of clothing. It's not just dresses. Our fastest growing category is denim, shoes and tops. And we just launched swimwear a few weeks ago.”

 ?? ?? The new store on Beverly Drive has sleek lines and sustainabl­e material.
The new store on Beverly Drive has sleek lines and sustainabl­e material.
 ?? ?? The new flagship at 409 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills.
The new flagship at 409 North Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills.

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