Last April, when Taylor Swift was spotted wearing activewear brand Popflex’s Pirouette Skort, the product experienced record sales—and 19,000 preorders—sending founder and CEO Cassey Ho scrambling to meet demand. Secretly, behind the scenes, she was stretching herself thin designing her debut line for Target, which hit stores nationwide last month.

Ho, who rose to fame as founder of Pilates platform Blogilates, previously launched workout equipment with Target under the name in 2020. When Target contacted Ho in December 2023 about an apparel line, she set out to design more affordable versions of Popflex products, which range from $60 leggings to more than $100 for outerwear.

“We started off the deck with comments from people being like, ‘Why can’t I get this at Target?’ ‘When’s it going to be at Target?’ ‘I can’t afford Popflex,’” Ho told Retail Brew. “The whole point was to make this more accessible for more people.”

The 108-page deck she presented to Target ultimately became an activewear line priced starting at $15, available at the retailer for six weeks. The line has already gone viral, garnering TikToks of product try-ons, reviews, and comparisons to Popflex.

Keep reading here.—EC

The days of waiting two years for fashion trends to trickle down from the runway to mass market retailers is over, Target Chief Commerce Officer Rick Gomez said at the NRF’s Big Show on Monday.

“That’s not the way it works anymore,” he said. “Things are moving much faster.”

• China-based fast fashion e-commerce platforms such as Shein and Temu have popularized speedy go-to-market strategies, but Gomez’s comments show that even mass retailers with large brick-and-mortar footprints are picking up the pace.

Previously, it took Target up to 27 weeks to bring a new product to market, Gomez explained, which was too long to respond to rapidly emerging fashion trends. So in response to this changing consumer environment, Target developed an operating model that allows it to bring some products to market in as few as eight weeks.

Keep reading here.—AV

Every new year brings endings and new beginnings—particularly for retailers, many of whom have plans to open and close locations in 2025. Here are the notable ones we know so far:

Openings

• Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt last week shared that the book chain will open 60 new locations in the US this year.
• Costco is slated to open six new locations in March, pushing its store count to 900.
• Ulta is planning on expanding to Mexico this year, planning to grow its presence to 100 stores there over the next few years.
• Trader Joe’s has 12 new locations slated to open this year in states including California, Pennsylvania, and New York.
• Dollar General aims to unveil 575 US locations and 15 stores in Mexico in fiscal 2025, with 4,885 total real estate projects in the works including remodels and relocations.
• Convenience chain Wawa is opening a slew of new locations in 2025, including 13 across Central Pennsylvania and up to 10 in North Carolina as the chain continues to expand.
• Wegmans said last month it has three stores under construction, entering new markets in Connecticut and on New York’s Long Island, plus its ninth store in Maryland.
• 7-Eleven this year aims to build 125 New Standard stores—large-format, food-centric locations—as part of a plan to open more than 600 by 2027.
• Whole Foods will add two new Daily Shop locations in New York City after opening the first location in the city last year.

Keep reading here.—EC