LOS ANGELES — Reformation is testing a bridal shop, called Ref Bridal Studio, just a few paces from its regular store on Melrose Avenue here and is filling the shop with its romantic, flowing dresses available for try-on by appointment only, beginning Wednesday.
It’s a temporary shop, but if the concept works, it will become permanent and more will be opened, according to founder and chief executive officer Yael Aflalo.
“It was kind of happenstance, or a series of a different things,” Aflalo said of how the company’s bridal shop came to be.
The existing Reformation store on Melrose would often get bridal shoppers with groups of eight to 10 people in tow, spending hours in the dressing room trying on clothes. That conflicted with other Reformation shoppers doing their regular shopping. So the company took the extra floor on its existing Los Angeles store and converted it into a bridal studio and the reaction was immediately positive, Aflalo said.
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“When people are shopping for bridesmaid dresses, they’re looking for a very — I don’t want to say emotional, but more thoughtful, more engaging experience,” she said. “And so we really felt like…our bridal has done so well, what can we do to take it to the next level? So we thought having a dedicated studio would be awesome.”
The space will carry around 15 to 20 styles, each coming in at least four colorways.
It’s a fast-growing category for Reformation and many others looking to tap a Millennial bride and her bridesmaid by offering something a tad less traditional.
Reformation got into bridal in March 2014 and special occasion dress purchases now account for roughly 20 percent of overall revenue.
“I have this allergic reaction to industry products that are overpriced for no reason and bridesmaids dresses is one of them,” Aflalo said of why Reformation got into bridal. “It’s just a dress, but people are charged and kind of expected to pay so much more for them and they do it because they have to. I think its funny because we’ll get some feedback that our regular dresses are too expensive and then people say our bridesmaid dresses are very affordable. They’re very similarly priced but it’s because of the perception of ‘I can go to Zara and get a dress for $68, but if I get a bridesmaid’s dress, I expect to spend $400.’”
So Aflalo wanted to fix this pricing issue. But she also wanted to put a cap on the individual requests coming in for custom orders. It’s not uncommon for customers to inquire about having multiple dresses made in a particular color — not something the company does.
That’s how bridal came to be at Reformation, with the company starting off in small batches and then going from there. It’s very much the same approach to a bricks-and-mortar store, of which the company has three that are permanent. There are two in New York and one on Melrose in Los Angeles.
Social media chatter buzzed more recently about a possible store at the Platform development with a post on Instagram from another store owner at the Culver City, Calif., retail project that referenced a “new” Reformation.
Reformation at Platform would be a fit with existing tenants such as Aesop, Velvet by Graham & Spencer and Magasin. Additionally, the company has worked with the brokerage services arm of Platform developer Runyon Group LLC, Runyon principal and cofounder David Fishbein told WWD late last year.
However, Aflalo waved off the idea as perhaps confusion by someone who saw her at the project and assumed she was shopping for real estate. She confirmed no deal has been signed at Platform.
“So we’re looking for new retail spaces; we’re looking all the time,” she said. “I mean, maybe. We’re looking at spaces all over the country, but when we ink a deal we’re going to announce it.”