ThirdLove, the direct-to-consumer lingerie and underwear retailer, is opening its first experiential store in New York City on July 24. The store will stay open until the end of 2019, according to a company statement. ThirdLove has experimented with pop-up locations in the past, such as the #NotOneType pop-up with Wizard Studios, but this is the first time the digital native is selling products in a physical store.
Customers can come into the store for a real-life bra fitting with its “Fit Stylists,” and all of ThirdLove’s 78 sizes will be available to try on in the store. More than 60% of the store’s 1,000-square-foot space is dedicated to fitting rooms.
The fitting is an extension of the company’s online “Fit Finder” questionnaire, which is designed to determine the right size bra for the shopper via proprietary algorithms. More than 14 million women have taken the quiz, and the company has sold four million bras, according to a statement. ThirdLove leverages the data from each quiz taken to help build optimal bra designs.
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“Since day one, we have always used customer feedback and data to help us better serve all women,” said Heidi Zak, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of ThirdLove in a statement. “This retail space will give us the chance to do that in real life, learning what women want from an in-store bra fitting experience. I started ThirdLove because I thought women deserved a better bra brand and a better shopping experience. We’ve delivered that online and now a lot of our customers have expressed a desire to connect with our brand in person.”
In February, ThirdLove raised $55 million, rounding the company’s valuation up to more than $750 million. Zak and Co-Founder/husband David Spector have not commented on whether the company will open more stores in the future.
The store puts ThirdLove in direct competition with Victoria’s Secret in New York; the more traditional lingerie retailer has a store less than 10 minutes’ walk away in SoHo. Victoria’s Secret has been a major target of ThirdLove, which has built its value proposition on being more data-driven, inclusive bra sizing and marketing campaigns.
The tense rivalry between the companies escalated when ThirdLove ran a full-page ad in The New York Times in November 2018, presented as “An Open Letter to Victoria’s Secret,” that called out L Brands CMO Ed Razek for “demeaning” comments he made about plus-size and transgender models in an interview with Vogue.
