mornin' merrymakers 🌍✈️🛍️🌸🏙️

"stop scrolling."

that's the campaign above that marc-antoine barrois, a french brand, has been plastering around soho this month. anti-social media ads stuck to walls in the neighborhood with a violinist playing out front. the founder wearing a shirt saying "I am better IRL."

the irony is that all of this is proudly featured all over their instagram, too.

i love the message, but we live in an era where offline messages are created for online audiences, especially since many of the new entrants to retail have strong online presences.

this is the overall theme of this retail roundup of new store openings in april.

paris-based couturier marc-antoine barrois built his reputation in fashion before pivoting to fragrance. the maison, best known for its sculptural bottles & handcrafted scents, just opened its first north american boutique at 120 wooster st in soho on april 16.

the store is stunning with silly details like ants, orangutans, mushrooms, & even a tardigrade. all of which i'm sure cost a very pretty penny.

scents make so much sense to be in stores.

soho has quietly become a pilgrimage destination for scent obsessives. olfactory nyc, guefia 1833, amouage, byredo, commodity, kilian paris, scent bar, & more! my nose already lost all sense of smell & i got a headache just thinking about going to this many spots in an afternoon.

also interesting to see this surge alongside the growth of the non-tox movement, which strongly disapproves of anything with fragrance.

wewearaustralian did two pop-ups in nyc in 2025 before fully committing.

the first us store just opened at 69 mercer st. yes, also in soho.

5,000 square feet. up to 35 australian brands in rotation at a time: fashion, interiors, art. labels at launch include silk laundry, lee mathews, bared footwear, & bondi born. price range runs $300–$1,200.

what makes this interesting isn't the brands or the beautiful door knobs.

it's the model.

wewearaustralian is more platform than brand. the premise is that australian designers don't have a home in the us market. the brand is betting that they deserve one.

3 more us locations are already planned: ues, palm beach, & dallas.

hard for these discovery stores to work, but hopeful this one won't go down… under. 🦘

another brand making a return to the newsie is sukoshi for their opening on april 25 at westfield valley fair mall in santa clara.

i covered their rapid scaling plans in november last year & wanted to give an update on how they're delivering on this. as of november, sukoshi had 15 stores.

their store website today shows 31 stores, 6 of which are coming soon!!

doubling the footprint in 6 months is aggressive.

the questions i always ask at this pace: can you double the stores without halving the experience? can you effectively manage cash until these baby stores are grown up & profitable?

the brand's pitch & timing is right as asian beauty keeps growing in interest.

the execution is what matters now. 👀

cozey is a canadian dtc furniture brand pitching itself as a better ikea. higher design quality, slightly higher price point, direct-to-consumer model. think couches, sofa beds, rugs & tables.

i think we've heard this pitch many times before, but i digress.

the brand has 3, soon to be 4 locations in canada. so it decided to give the us a try. on april 8, cozey opened a 5,000 sq ft pop-up on abbott kinney in la, running through december.

this is not a cheap place to rent nor to test retail…

i rarely see brands perform as well here as other flagship locations. hard category on a hard street. my best guess on the strategy here is to fail fast, or i'm entirely missing what's special about this brand.

cider has been online-only its entire life. discord community. influencer marketing. new york pop-ups. $130M+ raised at over $1B valuation. 6M instagram followers. 50M app downloads. it's one of the biggest gen z dtc fashion brands that i completely missed until researching this letter.

on april 21, it opened its first permanent store at the original farmers market (i.e., next to the grove).

nearly 8,000 square feet focused on fashion starting with a feeling. clothes are organized by vibes like "feeling cute," "feeling corpcore," & my personal fave, "feeling rsvp."

2 more stores planned for later this year for the cidergang.

cider is joining revolve & shein in a small but growing wave of online-native fashion brands going permanent. fast fashion moving fast again.

the big question will be if it can differentiate from the rest & who will survive.

last summer i did a deep dive on goop's retail strategy & it's becoming abundantly clear that they are betting much more on goop kitchen than their goop stores.

the 1st goop kitchen outside california opened on april 20 in midtown west, nyc.

6 more planned by the end of 2026: east williamsburg, upper east side, flatiron & more.

this isn't even really a storefront. it's a dark/ghost kitchen model, delivery & takeout only. no dining room. the "store" is the bag that shows up at your door.

goop's bet here is specific.

the plan is that its name carries enough weight to make delivery & dining aspirational, because we all know nyc doesn't have enough of that. 😏

p.s. what did i miss?! i always love hearing of new spots from y’all!