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Bryan Sullivan recently weighed in on the rapid increase of monobrand perfume storefronts, both in New York City and across the globe, in Glossy. Estée Lauder Companies recently opened four storefronts for its perfume and beauty brands along Prince Street in Soho, joining the long list of monobrand perfume stores popping up in the city in recent months.

Bryan explains that new and established brands alike have an incentive to open up storefronts in high-end, iconic shopping areas in fashion hotspots like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin.

“After Covid, there’s this drive to be seen as having some level of brick-and-mortar that is in a high-end area,” Bryan tells Glossy. “Newer brands might be raising a lot of money and taking on debt in order to make that launch, so they have that cachet. And the more established brands look at it as kind of a crowning achievement, showing that they have made it to the elite luxury levels.”

The article adds that as high-end department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus face uncertain futures and online shopping becomes the default, opening a storefront offers a level of security in the fragrance world, where the vast majority of sales take place in person.

“If you want to be luxury, you have to look like luxury,” he concludes.

Read the full article in Glossy (subscription required).