With a New Store in NorthPark Center, Glossier Charts Its Comeback in Dallas

NorthPark Center has been touting a series of coming mall attractions for months, from Prada and Givenchy to Hill House and Reformation. Two stalwart fashion houses and a pair of buzzy brands with proven followings — both couplings are right at home in the Dallas mall’s hallowed halls. 

This May, however, as my friend and I made our way through NorthPark’s Abercrombie-flanked entrance, we were greeted by an unexpected sight. There, wrapped around a prime corner spot in the beloved Dallas shopping mall, was a massive sign that read “Glossier. Opening Soon!” The poster featured a row of familiar old friends in the form of the brand’s Balm Dotcom glosses, recently restored to the beloved OG formulation. 

“Oh! Are we still doing Glossier?” asked my fellow Millennial friend. 

It was a fair question. While there was once a time when a Glossier pop-up on Henderson Avenue caused a feeding frenzy among Millennial Pink lovers (me included) in 2017, the brand, launched in 2014 by Emily Weiss as a direct-to-consumer answer to the “no makeup” aesthetic, has lost its original luster post-pandemic. Plagued by poor business decisions (remember “Play?”) and accusations of racism, it wasn’t long until an astute Reddit user posted a poll and posed the question, “Is Glossier in its flop era?” 71% voted yes, with many noting that, despite the company’s failures, they were still rooting for the brand to right the ship. 

Like the reformulated Balm Dotcoms signal, Glossier is currently in course-correction mode. And though the newly relaunched glosses were a return to form (they even include the original 2014 Balm Dotcom packaging), Glossier’s next chapter also sees the brand stepping into new territory — namely, the shelves of Sephora. In a move that would seem highly antithetical for one of the most iconic consumer beauty brands of a generation, Kyle Leahy, a former Cole Haan exec who took over the CEO role from Weiss in 2022, has embraced a wholesale rollout. It seems to be working. 

Leahy is also focusing on strengthening Glossier’s own network of brick-and-mortar boutiques, which leads us back to Dallas. In the last two years alone, the brand has opened stores in Washington DC, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia, along with a stunning new flagship in New York (the original quietly closed in 2020). Now, Glossier is targeting Texas, with its first permanent Dallas store opening in NorthPark in 2024. (“Late summer,” according to a LinkedIn job posting.)   

As for what we can expect at Glossier 2.0’s Dallas store, it’s safe to assume design-conscious interiors and immersive spaces to test out popular products and document the experience. Store aesthetics typically reflect its city’s culture — we’ll place our bets on Western. What I’ll personally be looking for is the shoppers themselves. Will Gen Z Dallasites clamor for Cloud Paint and Boy Brow the same way Millennials did seven years ago? Will the experimental BeautyTok set embrace Glossier’s minimalism? As a former Emily Weiss admirer (she was once a very good intern after all), I look forward to seeing the Texas chapter of Glossier 2.0 unfold.