So long, millennial monochrome: Why store designs are getting more colorful

A decade ago, minimalist designs reigned supreme in retail stores, especially those of direct-to-consumer brands. White walls, uncluttered layouts and soft lighting gave stores a sleek, elegant vibe. Now, as competition for customers’ dollars gets tighter, stores are turning to splashy paint colors, bold art and comforting tapestries and curtains to invite shoppers, many of them younger ones, across the threshold to browse and hopefully buy.

In December, for instance, Kendra Scott opened the second location of her Westernwear brand, Yellow Rose, in Dallas. True to the brand’s name, the store’s walls are painted mustard yellow, while its exterior is deep red. Meanwhile, in November, luggage brand Calpak opened its first store in Los Angeles and painted many of its fixtures and displays green. Hoka’s New York City flagship, which opened last summer, has a blue facade, ceiling and walls.

“Brands used to say to us, ‘We want our store to look like if Apple built a shoe store or a convenience store,'” Rebekah Kondrat, founder of the retail consultancy Rekon Retail, told Modern Retail. “We actually haven’t gotten that [request] in over a year.” In fact, Kondrat, who has worked with brands like Figs on retail stores, estimates that 90% of her retail clients want stores with “highly-textured, highly-saturated colors.” “That was not happening two years ago,” she said.

Similarly, TPG Architecture, which was responsible for the Birkenstock store on Abbott Kinney in Venice Beach that opened in 2019, is seeing more interest in design concepts that are “distinctive, unique and brand-driven,” Alec Zaballero, managing executive at TPG Architecture, told Modern Retail. One of the firm’s clients, whom Zaballero declined to name because of an NDA, is reevaluating its storefront design “because the version from two years ago now feels too simple and monochrome,” Zaballero explained.

This shift toward the bold and brighter is happening for a few reasons. During the pandemic, stores focused on simple, efficient designs, since customers weren’t spending a long time browsing. In 2025, people are back out in the world and want to see more unique storefronts. A younger customer base with more discretionary income fits into the equation, too. Gen Z — a coveted consumer for today’s brands — overwhelmingly shop in person, and brands are betting on eclectic store designs to cater to their interest in personalization and self-expression.

This new trend in store design also mimics what’s happening at the product level. Soda alternatives like Poppi, Culture Pop, Zevia and Olipop are using Gen-Z-friendly colors like hot pink, orange and lilac on their cans. Brompton Bicycles added a bike in Yuzu Lime to “speak to the Charli XCX vibe,” a representative told Modern Retail. Last month, Walmart updated its color palette to True Blue and Spark Yellow in an effort “to keep the brand fresh.” With packaging and logos becoming more vibrant and bolder, “it makes sense that [this change] is permeating into the store environment,” Kondrat said.

Still, stores need to be strategic about how they’re using color, said Cindi Kato, principal at Arcadis, a design firm that has designed stores for Petco and Foot Locker. Retail stores typically use color for wall accents, text, logos, digital signs and point-of-purchase elements, she said. Large stores with multiple departments, like a pharmacy or a grocery section, may also use colors to mark sections or flag sales.

Brands tend to have go-to colors they use for branding — like red for Target and orange for The Home Depot. But when it comes to picking colors for store designs, brands shouldn’t use colors that “fight against the product,” Kato explained. “You want to enhance it; that’s the rule of thumb,” she said.

After all, people are coming into the store to look at the product, she said, and product is what accounts for sales. “It’s more about the purposeful use of color and what the customer is picking up from that,” Kato said.