Dive Brief:
- Brooklinen on Saturday opened a store in Washington, D.C. as the bedding brand continues its expansion into brick-and-mortar locations.
- Located in the Logan Circle neighborhood in the historic Black Cat concert venue, the store is filled with organic tones and natural woods, with accents in the brand’s heritage blue color, according to details emailed to Retail Dive.
- The DTC bedding brand now operates nine stores, according to its website.
Dive Insight:
Brooklinen continues to open physical locations years after announcing plans to expand its store fleet.
Back in April 2022, co-founder and former CEO Rich Fulop talked of major store expansion. Fulop said the company looked to operate between 25 and 30 stores by 2024, with the channel eventually representing 50% of total sales.
After testing the brick-and-mortar waters in 2018 with a 2,000-square-foot pop-up store in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, Brooklinen opened its first permanent store in early 2020. In addition to the D.C. location, the brand today has stores in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, San Diego, Portland, Oregon, and Santa Monica, California.
The store opening follows major changes at the brand. Fulop in July stepped down as CEO. The company in October named Fulop’s replacement in Billy May, who most recently served as chief customer officer at Urban Outfitters’ parent company URBN.
Brooklinen, which got its start in 2014 selling sheets, has expanded into other product categories, including bath towels, robes, shower curtains and loungewear. The company in 2021 also debuted another brand dubbed Marlow, which focuses on pillows. Marlow last October inked a wholesale deal with Walmart to sell in over 1,000 of the mass merchant’s stores as well as on its website.
