Violet Grey is making a pivot to physical retail in 2026. The once digital-first beauty darling will open three US stores this year, plus a London shop-in-shop.
Violet Grey will open in East Hampton in May, Dallas in late summer, and its Los Angeles Palisades Village outpost is set to reopen this summer, around the same time it will also open a shop-in-shop with British retailer Harvey Nichols on April 20.
It’s a major investment in physical retail for a retailer that, until last year, had only one physical location — and it’s one that the team hopes will drive growth following a rocky period. After launching the retailer in 2012 and opening an LA store two years later, founder Cassandra Grey built Violet Grey as an online-first retailer, known for its curated mix of rising independent beauty brands and trusted luxury products, with an editorial lens not seen anywhere else in beauty. In 2022, Violet Grey was acquired by Farfetch for $50 million (the company had raised $29.2 million in funding at the time), but the e-tailer closed its beauty business the following year amid financial struggles. In September 2024, Grey bought back the company for an undisclosed sum, alongside private equity investor Sherif Guirgis, who is now chair and CEO. (Grey sits on the executive board.)
“Violet Grey has an amazing following of loyalists, a cult status, and the highest level of credibility and curation,” Guirgis says. “I think that was true before the company sold to Farfetch, and I think that was still true under Farfetch, [but] it wasn’t necessarily optimized.” When he and Grey bought the business back, they saw an opportunity to own the white space in the premium, highly curated experiential beauty market, the CEO says.
The rationale for the next flock of US spaces is twofold: to offer existing customers expanded access to Violet Grey’s services and brand world, and to get in front of new consumers, who may well replenish via e-commerce once they know the brand. “It’s about being in more places, being exposed to more people, and really showing our points of differentiation,” Guirgis says. “I do think that, to some degree, it’s easier to spotlight that differentiation in a physical environment than it is digitally.”
Since the 2024 acquisition, the team has been focused on the building blocks, he says: replatforming the website to Shopify and strengthening the team, including the appointment of group president Tracy Kline in June 2025. Violet Grey declined to share revenues at this stage, but said the business saw approximately 50% year-on-year growth in 2025, and is approaching 100% growth in 2026 to date.