Wake up, babe. A new DSW store just dropped.

Over the weekend, the company opened a new concept store in Houston called “Warehouse Reimagined.” And there’s a lot going on.

House of brands

The store is smaller than a typical DSW (15,000 square feet vs. 20,000+ square feet), and—in addition to featuring names like Adidas, Birkenstock, and New Balance in dedicated spaces—it’s a chance for parent company Designer Brands to showcase its own brands, like Vince Camuto and Lucky Brand.

• The owned and national brands have displays that function like a shop-in-shop concept.
• Warehouse Reimagined also has spots for pickups and returns, as well as mobile product displays.

“We continue to see the evolution of how [customers] want to be engaged, where they want to be engaged, and ultimately how they want to shop,” Jared Poff, EVP and CFO at Designer Brands, told Retail Brew. “This is just us following that evolution and really marrying up what continues to be a combination of wanting a completely seamless, immersive experience that crosses the digital platform, as well as the physical platform.”

• Poff mentioned the company is eyeing adding capabilities that let customers check out with their phones.

Name game: The name was a shoe-in. The “warehouse” component refers to how the company has used its stores over the past four years, and this concept will be no different. Last year, Designer Brands’s digital sales crossed the $1 billion threshold for the first time. Of that, 60% of orders were shipped from a local store in a customer’s neighborhood.

• It helps that 70% of the US population is within 20 minutes of a DSW location, Poff noted.

“Even if it’s a dropship order—something that they’re buying from a national brand that we don’t carry the inventory in—we just make the product available digitally for them to see it,” he said. “They can still have that delivered to a store if they want to do a buy online, pick up in store. For those reasons, we continue to say they aren’t just a showroom; they are a warehouse.”

Click here to read more.—KM

Scaling up carbon-capture and carbon-removal tech is a big focus, but…what do we do once we catch ’em all that carbon?

As Emerging Tech Brew’s Grace Donnelly notes, one option is upcycling captured CO2 and using it to make products that rely on fossil fuels—aka carbon utilization. And people have plenty of ideas for how to make it sexy: You can turn captured CO2 into diamonds, or vodka, or little black dresses.

Capturing the moment: Now, let Grace introduce you to LanzaTech, one of the companies working to recycle carbon. Since it was started in 2005, the Chicago-based company has partnered with brands to use captured carbon to make products ranging from perfume to laundry detergent. In April, it said it would team up with Bridgestone on a process to recycle used tires. It’s also working with Zara and Lululemon to produce materials for clothing.

• And—don’t bug out—it’s feeding CO2 to bacteria to create sustainable aviation fuel and other chemicals.

“We can’t build enough, fast enough. Demand is humongous,” said Tom Dower, VP of public policy at LanzaTech. “These are consumer-facing brands, all these ones that we’re working with. Their consumers want them to give them a choice. And that’s what we say is give consumers a choice of where their carbon comes from.”

Read the full story on Emerging Tech Brew here.—GT

At the mall, it’s where band tees are the only tees. In Retail Brew, it’s where we invite readers to weigh in on a trending retail topic.

Last week, a majority draft opinion showing the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked, sending shockwaves across the nation. Within hours of the news, protests were under way—and still are.

Some retailers have also spoken out:

• Levi’s, in a statement, said “protecting access to the full range of reproductive health care, including abortion, is a critical business issue.” It added that “employees are eligible for reimbursement for health care-related travel expenses for services not available in their home state, including those related to reproductive health care and abortion” under its benefits plan.
• Gucci made a similar pledge over the weekend, as more companies expand abortion benefits. (In fact, Amazon did so hours before the news of the draft opinion broke.)

Others, including Walmart, have stayed silent—so far. Or, they’re waiting. Like Home Depot, which declined to comment to CNBC through a spokesperson, noting “since this is a draft, it wouldn’t be appropriate for us to speculate on the court’s final ruling.”

You tell us: Do you think retailers have a responsibility to speak out on abortion access? Cast your vote here.

Circling back: Last week, we asked if you wanted paper or plastic or both when it comes to single-use bag bans. Close to 42% believe that paper and plastic should be included in policies, while 32.8% want to stick with just plastic. About a quarter (25.5%) think shoppers should be able to make the call.

Today’s top retail reads.

Strike delivery: Why delivery work may be the next hotbed of union organizing. “There have been many, many instances in which Instacart either reduced pay, removed transparency, or otherwise manipulated or tweaked our earning capacity,” said Vanessa Bain, founder of the Gig Workers Collective. (Eater)

Dream job: A mattress company in India, Wakefit, requires all 677 employees to nap from 2pm to 2:30pm—in sleeping pods and quiet rooms. (Quartz)

Cask masters: How Macklowe, a small-batch whiskey maker that sells its booze for $1,500 a bottle, became a hit with Wall Street moguls. (Bloomberg)

Looking for more? Check out Retail Brew’s latest article diving into Gen Z’s consumption habits, sponsored by Edelman.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• How Goodbuy hopes to revolutionize conscious shopping
• A baby-gear resale platform comes to the US
• Understanding Gen Z, in five charts