Paloma Wool Opens First Permanent Store in SoHo
Paloma Lanna was too pregnant to personally christen her brand’s first store. But the influence of the founder and designer of the Barcelona-based women’s label Paloma Wool was nonetheless evident throughout her SoHo boutique.
The 4,000-square-foot unit at 425 Broome Street is the culmination of a series of pop-ups that the brand has opened around the world over the past six years.
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After selling direct-to-consumer since its founding in 2014, Paloma Wool started what was described as a “world tour” in 2019, bringing pop-ups to cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, London, Paris and Los Angeles, with New York being the most successful, according to Pol Conill, who heads communications for the brand.
The first pop-up was on Spring Street, he said, and when the doors opened, there was a line down the street. Ditto for the first day the Broome Street store opened as young women seeking its feminine, minimalistic designs turned out to shop.
“Our last pop-up was three months,” he said, “so we realized it made sense to make it permanent.”
The shop was designed in collaboration with Barcelona-based light designer Max Mila and is intended to reflect the brand’s artistic exploration.
Lanna grew up in the fashion industry; her parents had a brand called Nice Things and after her father passed away, she joined her mother in the family business. But after a couple of years, she decided to launch her own brand and named it after herself — kind of: lana means wool in Spanish.
She started small, with just a handful of pieces in bold prints and colors that she promoted on social media. She didn’t follow the traditional calendar and dropped collections when it suited her instead of during market weeks. The collection was centered around artistic expression through clothing and inspired by her personal love of photography, illustration and art.
Early success led Lanna to begin wholesaling and to follow the fashion calendar, and today, Paloma Wool holds runway shows in Paris for wholesale customers such as Nordstrom, Ssense, Revolve, Mytheresa, Garmentory and Farfetch. “But we also keep the capsule idea coming throughout the season,” Conill said.
Although the brand is nearly all women’s apparel, shoes and bags, Paloma Wool has also begun dabbling in men’s. “We started as a women’s brand,” Conill said. “But menswear is growing.” He said some of the pieces such as the sweatpants with leather piping and T-shirts are unisex and the men’s-specific items include a sweater with reflective stripes and a washed button-down shirt.
While there’s a lot of wool in the fall collection, the spring line is much lighter and features a lot of knitwear. Among its most popular pieces, he said, are the sheer shirts or skirt pants for women, the latter of which are offered in a variety of options. There are also a cropped leather jacket and a leather miniskirt to juxtapose with the see-through tops. “They’re effortless and offer a balance between femininity and masculinity,” Conill described.
The store also features jewelry from New York-based Anna Santangelo that was created for the Paloma Wool show in Paris in February, as well as bags and shoes produced in-house.
Conill said a second store is expected to open in June in Barcelona and will house the company’s offices as well. As a result, there are no plans to open additional permanent stores at this point, but the pop-up tour will continue with London and Paris next on the list.
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