It was a friends and family affair on Saturday evening at Gigi Hadid’s Guest in Residence store opening party in prime Beverly Hills — the cashmere purveyor’s second location after New York City.
Hadid gathered her nearest and dearest, including her father Mohamed Hadid, brother Anwar, and the likes of Hailey Bieber and Liv Perez, to toast the new shop: a 1,000-square foot space at 433 North Beverly Drive. It was a festive mood inside; a Christmas tree was up, with cashmere socks as ornaments. Holiday music played as guests shopped the fall and winter 2024 collections while enjoying hot chocolate and waffles.
“It’s so good,” Hadid smiled, savoring a bite. She made her rounds, greeting visitors and posing for photographers, alongside cofounder Isaac Ross.
What made it the right time to expand?
“When the first one does well,” Ross said, with a laugh. The company, launched in 2022, has seen growth from last year, with revenue up 100 percent.
“And that’s why we’re business partners,” Hadid jumped in. “Because I’m much more of a business homebody, if that’s what you’d call it, in terms of that my comfort zone is our store on Bond Street.”
New York is home for Hadid, and there’s a sense of ease that comes with living near the flagship, she went on: “I like that we get to be in the store every week and know who works there. We can check up on it. And this feels like another child that just went to college. It’s far away — and you have to have business partners that push you to be growth minded, and I feel like our whole team really does that.”
The team today includes design director CJ Kim, Rossella Raffi overseeing marketing, with 15 on the corporate side, store employees and a full-time warehouse staff.
“We’re learning from our first year and applying that moving forward,” said Hadid.
The biggest learning has been understanding the core customer, she added. “It can be any type of person. It’s just that they have to have the same interest in investing in a high-quality piece that’s going to last with them.”
Cashmere cable crewneck sweaters and vests in chocolate browns and bright yellows start at $275, while trousers are priced at $565.
Next, there’s a kids’ line in the works and more pop-ups coming. The brand will return to Aspen — a possible third store location — in January for a limited time in partnership with Fwrd, a retail partner (others include Selfridges, Ssense and Net-a-porter).
“We saw people’s reactions to physically engaging with the product, and we realized how important that was,” Ross said of hosting a pop-up in New York their first week of launch. They’ve since brought activations to Paris and Seoul. “For us, direct retail is incredibly important, and having great partners, retailer partners who allow us to show our product all over the world to new groups of customers, it’s something that’s so exciting.”
