The next era of mall brands: Why Fabletics, Princess Polly and Primark are betting on American malls

It’s no secret that legacy mall staples have struggled to keep pace with changing consumer habits. Macy’s is in the midst of closing 150 underperforming stores, while Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy for the second time earlier this year.

But the mall is still an important place for digitally-native upstarts to introduce themselves to new customers. Kim Kardashian’s Skims, which says it wants to build the “Apple stores of apparel,” is on track to bring its brick-and-mortar store fleet to 22 locations by the end of the year. A number of those are in malls, including the Houston Galleria and Atlanta’s Lenox Square. Vuori, which aims to surpass 100 global stores by the end of 2025, has opened stores at Minnesota’s Mall of America and Pennsylvania’s King of Prussia in recent years.

Modern Retail spoke with three brands — athleisure brand Fabletics, TikTok-favorite Princess Polly and low-cost fashion retailer Primark, which have made the mall a key part of their physical retail strategy — about why these big shopping centers still resonate. They’re embracing malls as strategic hubs for brand awareness, community connection and revenue growth. And as consumers have more choice than ever over where to shop, these brands are focused on creating differentiated retail environments that turn their stores into destinations.

While the old mall model focused on anchor tenants like Macy’s, JCPenney and Sears to draw in shoppers, today’s malls are “about creating an ecosystem of interesting brands,” according to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail. “Often that means having a collection of small, more boutique stores. That’s a big change for a lot of malls.”

Malls as multipliers

Fabletics, owned by TechStyle Fashion Group, was founded as a DTC brand in 2013 but opened its first physical store in April 2019, in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood. Since then, the company has been laser-focused on physical retail. Fabletics now operates more than 100 stores and is opening at least 20 more U.S. locations this year, half of which will be in malls. More than half of its existing stores are located in indoor malls.

Physical retail has become a fast-growing channel for the brand. In 2024, Fabletics’ same-store sales were up 20% year-over-year, and this year’s results are “in the mid-teens,” according to the company. For Fabletics, the role of physical stores is to bolster the company’s VIP membership, a monthly program that offers discounts and other perks for participating customers and has been a core part of Fabletics’ business model since it launched. 

“We generally see four times the lifetime value where we can have a customer that can shop both in person and online,” Fabletics President and COO Meera Bhatia said in an interview. “Malls, specifically, we really like because they’re actual lifestyle destinations — a place for discovery and community and events.”

When it comes to choosing a new store location, proximity to its VIP customer base is a major consideration for Fabletics. The brand also utilizes a data-driven strategy to select mall locations that prioritize foot traffic and adjacency to like-minded brands. 

Mall locations are crucial for attracting new customers outside of the brand’s core VIP base. About 20% of the buyers who visit Fabletics stores are new members. “We see very high conversion into our membership program for people who come into the store,” Bhatia said. “People who come in and touch and feel the product see the value of the VIP membership, and they’ll convert into the membership.”

There are also advantages for VIP members who shop in person at a Fabletics store. One benefit is that the brand’s integrated point-of-sale system allows it to track which items a customer tries on in-store and use that data to personalize future online interactions. “If a customer goes into a fitting room, we know what they’re like,” Bhatia said. “We can use that to tailor the experience for what we show them online.”

From social feed to shopping center

Another digitally native upstart, Australian womenswear brand Princess Polly, is tapping into Gen Z’s love for IRL shopping. 

Research from ICSC, a mall industry group, underscores the sales opportunity for mall operators, brands and retailers. Gen-Z shoppers visit malls as often as older generations, with 60% saying they go just to hang out and about 30% saying they prefer in-store shopping because they want their purchases immediately, according to the ICSC report, which was published in 2023. 

After launching into the U.S. in 2018 as a digital-only brand, Princess Polly has since opened eight standalone mall locations and has a wholesale presence in over 90 Nordstrom stores, many of which are located in malls. The brand also has additional openings planned for the second half of the year, including a new location at King of Prussia. By year-end, the brand will have 13 total stores. Princess Polly’s chief merchandise officer, Courtney Dres, said the U.S. is a target area of growth for the company, which has offices in both the Gold Coast of Australia and Los Angeles.

“Our customers were crying out for it,” said Dres. “It really just looked like the next logical, organic step for us, in terms of getting right in front of our customers and being available to them where they are.”

TikTok-famous and popular among Gen-Z shoppers — Princess Polly has nearly 1 million TikTok followers — the brand designs its physical stores to reflect its digital identity. Princess Polly’s stores feature large LED screens streaming video content, plentiful mannequins styled to match online looks and photo booths for customers to snap selfies. For Gen-Z shoppers, the mall is as much a shopping opportunity as it is a backdrop for social media content. 

“Malls are definitely something that we’re finding our customer is really excited to get into,” Dres said. “It’s very much a social experience for younger customers to be shopping.”

While Gen Z “may have a reputation of being online all the time, they actually have a strong and consistent affinity for in-person shopping experiences,” Zach Beloff, vp of leasing at mall giant Simon Property Group, told Modern Retail in April. Brands are using physical locations “to attract a new customer who they’re not already reaching through their existing customer base,” he added. 

From Dublin to the U.S.

Princess Polly isn’t the only international retailer winning over American malls. 

Founded in 1969 in Dublin, Irish retailer Primark has around 450 stores across 17 countries. Primark opened its first U.S. store in Boston in 2015 and has been steadily opening locations across the country ever since. The retailer currently operates 31 stores across 13 states, 25 of which are located inside malls. 

Primark’s early U.S. strategy involved testing different store sizes and formats in malls across the Northeast, including locations in Connecticut’s Danbury Fair Mall and Pennsylvania’s King of Prussia. Now, the brand is in growth mode, with plans to open more stores in both super-regional malls and community-based centers. 

“Our business model is very much bricks-and-mortar led,” said Kevin Tulip, Primark’s president of U.S. operations. “Malls are really where a lot of American bricks-and-mortar retail is done.”

Tulip declined to specify how many more U.S. stores Primark is targeting by year-end, but the retailer is opening its first Tennessee store in Memphis at Wolfchase Galleria on July 24. This marks its entry into the Tennessee market, with a second store planned for CoolSprings Galleria in Franklin. Primark has also signed new leases to expand into new markets like Texas and Florida. 

Primark’s mall-focused approach is paying off. The Irish retailer’s revenues rose 47% to £9.4 billion ($12.7 billion) in 2024, according to its parent Associated British Food’s annual report. “Primark’s sales increased due to its rollout of new stores in both Europe and the U.S. and consistent focus on its value proposition,” according to the report. As such, gross investment rose 9% to £1.3 billion ($1.7 billion) as Primark’s parent invested in “not only new stores but also technology to improve capabilities needed to drive growth.” For 2025, Primark is targeting mid-single-digit sales growth. 

Tulip attributed Primark’s success with U.S. malls to the company’s tailored approach to merchandising and product assortment. Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all model, Primark adjusts its offerings based on local demand and regional preferences. For example, the retailer has partnered with the NFL to create location-specific merchandise, such as Buffalo Bills apparel sold exclusively at its Walden Galleria store in Buffalo. To achieve this, Primark relies, in large part, on the judgment of its individual store managers. 

“We’ve given a lot of our store managers a lot more autonomy,” Tulip said. “They can pull in product rather than everything being pushed to them.”

Tulip also pointed to Primark’s robust social media presence as a key driver of in-store traffic. He said the brand has built “multi-million followers across our social media channels,” significantly outpacing other legacy retailers in the U.S. That digital reach, he added, helps introduce the brand to new customers even before a store opens: “We see that as a great way to meet customers before they come in and meet us once we’ve opened one of our stores.”

Mall revival

These brands’ growing investment in mall locations comes at a time when high-performing malls are showing renewed signs of life. According to Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate company, Class A malls — those with high sales per square foot and strong tenant mixes — have nearly returned to pre-pandemic foot traffic levels. Occupancy for these properties sits around 95%, compared to just 89% for Class B malls and 72% for C malls.

“The general synopsis for malls is that they’re polarized,” Saunders said. “There are some malls that are not very compelling, and they’re not drawing in the foot traffic and doing the numbers that they need to, but there are other models that are extremely successful.”

Meanwhile, mall operators like Simon Property Group are courting younger, trend-driven brands through curated leasing strategies and marketing campaigns. TikTok-viral fashion brand Edikted, for instance, is more than doubling its U.S. store count in 2025, with new locations in high-traffic Simon malls, Modern Retail previously reported. 

All told, for the next era of malls brands, many of which are digitally native or youth-oriented, malls have emerged as a key way to attract new customers and drive deeper engagement across channels.

“It’s kind of like a symbiotic relationship between online and retail,” Bhatia said. “A store for us is not just a branding moment. We are also there to drive transactions.”