As the summer season heats up, wealthy vacationers from the Northeast are getting in their cars and heading out to the Hamptons for seasonal luxury, and high-end fashion brands and retailers are seizing on the opportunity to engage these valuable customers.
For instance, online luxury retailer Mytheresa recently announced that it has partnered with lifestyle brand Flamingo Estate for the second consecutive year with a pop-up in East Hampton. “The Railroad Racetrack” features a miniature racetrack garden showcasing Mytheresa’s curated fashion alongside Flamingo Estate’s apothecary and pantry products. From personalized shopping appointments to energy readings and designer meet-and-greets, the pop-up extends beyond retail, aiming to provide a more immersive experience that builds deeper relationships with these high-value customers.
“Returning to East Hampton with a physical experiential store, together with Flamingo Estate, felt like the perfect moment to further bring this wonderful partnership to life,” Heather Kaminetsky, president of North America for Mytheresa, said in a statement. “We create a community for luxury enthusiasts and bring our customers another creative and truly luxury immersive shopping experience — one that allows us to surprise and delight our customers throughout the summer and to bring our curated offering to them in a more physical way.”
Prada, for its part, has reopened its East Hampton boutique on Newton Lane for the summer, featuring a new, red aesthetic, according to The Zoe Report. The interior, with retro ivory and red stripes, aims to give it a more memorable (and social-media-friendly) look. The store houses a selection of Prada’s collections, including the May Issue 2024 collection, with a focus on “sophisticated floral motifs or pastel hues and neutral tones,” per the brand.
New York-based luxury fashion brand Khaite has also joined the fray with a pop-up in East Hampton, per Vogue, appealing to its city-chic audience. The selection includes cotton poplin dresses, linen pants, canvas bags and mesh flats for the hot summer days. The boutique’s decor, featuring local Long Island flowers and design accents by known designers, adds to its local appeal.
Additionally, just a hop, skip and a jump away from the Hamptons, French fashion house Balmain is partnering with stylist Cameron Silver to curate a month-long pop-up experience at The Pridwin on Shelter Island, another high-end vacation destination toward the eastern end of Long Island, per Luxury Travel Magazine. The pop-up will showcase Balmain’s latest collections and feature styling sessions and other personalized shopping experiences.
Not only do these wealthy consumers have more cash to burn — they disproportionately spend on things like fashion. The February/March installment of the PYMNTS Intelligence “New Reality Check: The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Report” series, subtitled “Why One-Third of High Earners Live Paycheck to Paycheck,” drew from a January survey of more than 4,200 U.S. consumers to understand how different income groups spend their money. The results revealed that those making more than $200,000 a year spend 8.5% of their income, on average, on clothing, accessories and personal care items. In contrast, only 7.2% of the overall population said the same.
