Casual attire brands, especially those that are oriented in the wellness realm of yoga wear, continue to dominate expansion growth. Yoga is an activity which attracts the younger Gen Z and millennial audience, as well as the older aged Gen X and baby boomer crowd. Therefore, the yoga apparel fashion trend, which is now acceptable attire even outside of a yoga workout session, appeals to all age segments, especially within the aspirational middle-class and higher end affluent consumer.
New store trends include yoga apparel brands offering unique community building elements such as in-store yoga studios and wellness café/drink bars in addition to yoga lifestyle merchandise. Also, the product lines at many of these yoga apparel stores has branched out beyond exercise wear for women — consumers can now find street style looks, dresses, menswear clothing and even sleepwear products. Because of this branching out, many yoga apparel shops are now seeking larger square footage spaces in all types of retail settings, from neighborhood regional centers to lifestyle centers to urban retail street-front locations.
The brands in this category that are generating buzz for expanding into new regions, especially as Lululemon prioritizes overseas growth, include Athleta, Alo Yoga and Beyond Yoga.
Athleta will be opening up to 30 new stores this year, and future expansion projections should be in this same ballpark throughout 2024. Even though the brand opened a 4,590-s.f. two-level shop in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood in December, expect future growth to take place in outlet malls, as well as neighborhood strip mall spaces, grocery-anchored sites and lifestyle centers in fast-growing suburban locations with a larger percentage of Generation X/baby boomer female shoppers. For example, a new store will open by this summer in Fayetteville, N.Y., a suburb of Syracuse, in a strip mall with co-tenants such as Target and T.J. Maxx. Look for additional store growth to take place this year in Albuquerque, N.M., a new state for the brand, as well as Knoxville, Tenn., Deerfield, Ill., Deer Park, N.Y., Woodstock, Ga., Houston, Montville, Conn., Camarillo, Calif., and Carmel by the Sea, Calif.
Athleta looks for space in the 2,300- to 6,000-s.f. range, and its larger sized stores can offer neighborhood classes, such as yoga movement or meditation. Growth will take place in untapped regions throughout the country for Athleta, including the Southwest, Midwest and the South, with Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, Georgia, and Oklahoma all being states where the brand is underpenetrated. Also, to increase its customer base, Athleta now offers additional products, including dresses, accessories and intimates items.
Alo Yoga, which refers to its stores as “sanctuaries,” expects to open between five and 15 new units per year over the next two years. The brand especially seeks major metros and is currently expanding throughout all regions of the U.S. Upcoming units will open this year in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Austin, Georgetown in Washington, D.C., Roseville, Calif., Canoga Park, Calif., Walnut Creek, Calif., Boston, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio, St. Louis and Jacksonville, Fla. Anticipate continued growth in 2024 and beyond in high-end mall destinations throughout the Midwest and the South, including the Carolinas.
Preferred spaces for the brand are generally larger, in the 6,000- to 15,000-s.f. range, to accommodate for in-store space for yoga classes, beauty bars featuring its own labeled skincare products, and, if space allows, an organic cafe. Ideal sites include retail street-front spaces in urban cities, as well as upscale malls (indoor or open air) and lifestyle centers in suburban metro destinations or resort town communities. Co-tenants can include higher end women’s clothing brands, such as Aritzia or AllSaints. Alo Yoga will also be opening pop-up experiential sites in the future in select markets to promote its brand, such as its “Alo Winter House” pop-up shop in West Hollywood, Calif., last November, that offered features such as a meditation room, coffee and tea specialties, masseuses, reiki healers and even an ice-skating rink. Alo Yoga sells what it coins “studio to street” high-fashion yoga apparel, while fostering a health and wellness community in its stores.
Beyond Yoga, a digitally native luxury athletic apparel brand that was acquired in late 2021 by Levi Strauss & Co., has since opened its first two brick-and-mortar stores last year in Southern California. One location is a 4,000-s.f. space in the pedestrian and tourist-friendly Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and the other is in a 1,100-s.f. space at the Irvine Spectrum outdoor mall in Irvine. The brand is anticipating opening up to 10 new stores per year by 2024, with that number expected to ramp up to about 15 to 25 new stores per year by 2025 if the initial rollout proves successful. Upcoming stores in 2023 will be in additional Los Angeles metro sites, including a retail street-front space in the Larchmont Village neighborhood in Los Angeles, and a space in the Westfield Century City mall in Century City, Calif. Each store is in a different type of retail setting (suburban, urban residential street-front, outdoor mall, a tourist-driven shopping district), which will help determine Beyond Yoga’s future growth goals.
Beyond Yoga has indicated it does have plans to open in new national markets in the future, most likely in the top U.S. metros such as New York City, Miami, Austin, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Houston, Phoenix, Denver and Boston. The brand expects to also receive more widespread name recognition due to its partnership with the Barre3 fitness brand, which will exclusively carry Beyond Yoga’s merchandise in its studios by 2024. Beyond Yoga’s stores carry not just activewear, but also sleepwear, dresses, jackets and jumpsuits.
