A (2:14)

And we have our special guest, Mitchell Parton, who is a reporter at our sister publication, Modern Retail. Mitchell, thank you so much for joining the Glossy Podcast.

D (2:22)

Yeah, great to be here.

A (2:24)

Mitchell, this is your first time on the Glossy podcast, so thank you for being here.

D (2:28)

Yeah, absolutely.

A (2:29)

Major, this is a big event, but we're going to have a conversation about the shopping mall, the state of the American shopping mall, how to make it in a mall, the brands that are flourishing. I think there's a lot to talk about so we can just dive right in. But I wanted to start with a tiny bit of context. Obviously, E Commerce has changed the retail landscape over the last couple decades. And in recent years, there's been a lot of talk about the way people are shopping is changing. But I think the mall has been very resilient. And I thought we could look a little bit at some recent holiday mall data to give a little context. I saw that Black Friday traffic at American shopping malls has been increasing the last few years. I think it was up 3% this past black Friday, which is not bad according to one report. But I'm sure you guys have also seen lots of numbers out there. But how about. Mitchell, do you want to start and give us a little more context on malls this year or this past year?

D (3:27)

Yeah, I think Black Friday, it was a little up, but I'm just pulling up Placer AI data now, which, if you don't know, it's just cell phone data, like anonymized cell phone data that gives us a look at kind of where people are going traffic wise. It doesn't indicate sales, which is a very important thing. But it looks like open air shopping malls were. Or open air shopping centers grew the most, but they only grew like 1.7% compared to 2024. And this is like throughout the holiday season, like November to December, indoor malls were up 0.8 and outlet malls were down 0.8. Pretty, pretty stagnant overall actually. And I think there's still, there's still debates over how successful this holiday season was in general throughout retail, but kind of stagnant on the mall front. But like not, not super higher, obviously not, not a big jumper, not a big decline, just kind of staying, staying stagnant.

C (4:25)

Yeah. And I think it depends on the mall. And I know we're going to get into this. Like, Mitchell, you wrote this amazing story about like Mall of America and they saw like their best Black Friday ever, like, specific to Black Friday talking holiday. And so they had a lot of hoopla surrounding it in terms of like they had JoJo Siwa perform and they had all of these special, special promotions and discounts. I think that what we're going to talk about a lot today is the fact that, you know, malls that have not evolved over the last several years are the ones that are struggling and those that have become kind of multi use developments and a lot of entertainment and not only department stores anchoring them, but something that's more exciting and interactive, something to do are the ones that are seeing a lot of success. But yeah, mall. Did I get that stat right, Mitchell? Mall of America, was it their best ever Black Friday?

D (5:23)

Yeah, I know they were celebrating.

C (5:27)

Traffic at the mall was up 8.5% compared to 2024 and up almost 2% compared to 2019. The previous single day attendance record.

D (5:36)

I think they were saying that was kind of the highest they've seen on file, at least since they've been tracking it since 2011.

C (5:42)

Pretty exciting.

A (5:44)

I think like a lot of parts of the economy or in our beats right now, there's a lot of bifurcation where there are malls that I mean just from doing research for this episode, I was finding malls where there's these vacancies and brands leaving and stores closing. And then there's malls where they're having their record attendance for Black Friday. And interestingly, sometimes it's the same brands I was looking at. There's a mall in Towson, Maryland, close to where I grew up, where they have lost a bunch of brands recently. Banana Republic and Tommy Bahama and Madewell all have closed stores in this mall. And then Banana Republic I think is doing really well at some other malls. It kind of depends on where you are. And I've seen different retail analysts will kind of split them up as low tier malls or high tier. They have different terms for them. Just like what we see with consumers where there's a segment of consumers and segment of brands who are struggling economically and then there is a segment that's doing extremely well. I feel like the same dynamic plays across in retail and in malls as well.

C (6:47)

Can we just do our own little like we're all in different cities. Like what's the state of the mall where you live? Because there was this stat in New York Times as of like summer of last year, 2025 that said 1 in 6 shopping malls has closed since the sector peaked in 2013. Like I thought that would be much higher. I know, obviously I don't know if that's like net like compared to like a lot of them that have open, that are open, open air malls. Not sure. But you know, by me, like I was talking about the fact that our hot popular mall West county center had two hour, you know, wait times to get in at Black Friday during Black Friday and the fact that so many have Closed Chesterfield malls, Crested Plaza, like there I can name probably five. So it's like, it's Slim Pickens. There aren't a lot of malls, at least not accessible. There's one good one, west county that people go to that stores are opening in. We're getting a Pop Mart which we can talk about who's opening stores. And, and then there's one luxury mall, plaza, front neck. And then everything else is either way out there or has recently like closed. I wouldn't say recently in the last ten years. Um, but yeah. Would you say like more than one in six has closed in your neck of the woods like Mitchell in Dallas?

D (8:02)

Yeah, it's hard for me to get a grip, grip on Dallas because it's like a, it's like a country sized metro area. The higher end malls are doing very, very, very, very well. Like emphasis underlying. And then you see like some of the smaller malls even, even start to like become more like community hubs. Like they're trying like Grapevine Texas has like, I was walking through that mall. That's a totally different story. That like they had like, they had like Burlington and a lot of like, maybe like Asian concepts, a lot of like, like discount stores within the mall. Like it's, it's, it really depends on the community you're in and different malls. Like you can't even really generalize them all because they're all so different and depending on where they are in the area, they serve a very different purpose. They might be like a community. Like they might be doing the same thing a strip mall does. Or they might be like something people drive three hours to see like a new attraction. Like I'm sure we'll talk about Netflix House that's in like two or three malls. Like that's like it really, really depends on the mall.

A (9:09)

Yeah. And in New York City, I mean I don't go to a lot of malls and there's not a ton of traditional suburban style malls in New York City, but there are a few and they obviously tend to be the super upscale ones. I mean Hudson Yards, which has all these luxury brands is I think doing still pretty well. I recently went to Brookfield Place in lower Manhattan. My wife's parents were in town and we went specifically they do this thing called Canstruction where they have these artists making sculptures out of cans and then they donate the cans of food at the end. And we went to the mall just to see that. And we'll talk more about experiential stuff, but that was like a Draw. That's something that they do. And that's obviously a very upscale mall as well. And then I haven't been here in a long time, but it's somewhat close to me. American Dream is, like, despite being more of a theme park than a mall is, I also think, still doing really well. I think it's, like, in the top 10 malls in the country in terms of sales or foot traffic. So those are all, like, huge kind of. I mean, American Dream is gigantic and has, like, a ski slope inside it. So that's kind of its own thing. But New York City, definitely, there's a lot of these bigger upscale malls. But then there's also. I mean, what has closed in New York City is those smaller. Is it Show Fields, Jill. That closed somewhat recently, and that was more like smaller. And it was for indie brands to kind of have, like, a little space. And I feel like that didn't last in the way they hoped.

C (10:34)

Yeah. If you call that, like, a modern take on the mall, definitely. They let everybody. Yeah. Brands carve out their own space. Maybe almost like a shop and shop. Totally.

A (10:42)

Yeah. What do we. I wanted to talk a little bit about. What brands do you guys see doing really well in the mall? And we can obviously, as like, we're saying there's different types of malls, but just generally, like, are there brands that you see flourishing within the setting of a shopping mall? And why do you think that is?

D (11:01)

Pop Mart.

C (11:02)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. They're opening a lot of stores and. And I question the fact, like, there's a lot of talk about, you know, these malls want to be successful. Do they bring in these hot. Hot on TikTok brands and as Popmart. I saw the Pop Mart opening in West county center, and I was like, I think they're too late. Like, I feel like that ship has sailed. And no, like, Labubu is still popular, but, like, it's not as popular as it was last month, which is like, the trend cycles are so fast. You go ahead.

D (11:34)

Yeah, sorry. I'm the resident Labu expert. I've bought three, which is probably not a lot, but. And a figure.

A (11:41)

But.

D (11:42)

But this is like the first time, like, in months that you could just walk right up to a Pop Mart and right up front, you can grab a Labubu. So I don't know. I think this is, like, I think we're still early stages on that trend. Or, like, I think they have a lot more Runway because you can actually buy things there now.

C (12:00)

True. I see a lot of. A lot of the brands that are opening stores, which is a good sign. And we can talk about which ones are thriving. But obviously like we're seeing a lot of aloe yoga, we're seeing a lot of skims. Aritzia, what else do you guys see?

A (12:22)

Primark and Princess Polly. I feel like there are some kind of. Those are sort of like newer mall brands kind of in the same vein of like an American Eagle. Although I also want to talk about some of those classic mall brands like American Eagle, Abercrombie have also been having sort of a renaissance in the last couple of years. I mean, American Eagle obviously had that huge Sydney Sweeney campaign. Abercrombie, I think we talked about a year ago or two years ago, it was like they were one of the best performing publicly traded companies. I feel like all of those brands have been flourishing and I think the one thing they all have in common is kind of youthful Gen Z customer. Gen Z. I mean I found tons of data. I'm sure you guys saw this too, about Gen Z shoppers still shopping at malls pretty much just as often as older generations. One report I saw from ICSC said that 60% of Gen Z say they go to the mall just to hang out, which feels incredibly old fashioned, but it still happens. 30% say they prefer to shop in a mall. I don't know, I feel like a lot of the brands that I see doing really well are specifically focused on that younger customer and they're specifically focused.

D (13:29)

On a lot of influencer partnerships right now. Both the brands themselves are doing a lot of influencer marketing stuff as well as the mall operators. You know, they're doing a lot of campaigns like within, within the malls without like maybe like TV ads or out of home or whatever. But it's kind of a full frontal thing.

C (13:54)

Yes. American Dream. When we weren't sure if they were going to thrive after all their problems. Like they definitely went big on celebrity and you, you questioned how much they're paying these folks to come spend the day like Kim and North and it was all over social media. But yeah, I mean there's something to it. Obviously influencers work.

A (14:14)

Yeah. Another modern retail reporter, Alison Smith had a great story. I think it was earlier last year that we ran on Gossi about addicted. Is that how you say that brand, Jill? It starts with an E edicted, but they're like a TikTok famous fashion brand. They have a huge kind of young Gen Z audience and they have been going really hard on malls. They doubled their brick and mortar locations last year. Five new mall stores. And I think many of them were Simon owned malls. So I mean, you can read Alison's story. It's really good. But they say explicitly like, Gen Z is going to the mall. So that's where we're. We're going to show up, you know?

C (14:50)

Yes. Like, let's talk about what the mall brands are because there's a lot of talk about like the, the mall brands that have thrived or, you know, they're still, they've stuck around. It's the ones that speak to nostalgia and it's Gap and it's Hollister, Abercrombie. We're seeing them seeing success and Victoria's having their big. Victoria's Secret having their big comeback. I. Okay, but like there's also a wave of we know this mall brands that have you. I'm so old you probably have never heard of these brands. But when I was a kid, it was merry go round. I couldn't shop there. It was too sexy, like structure. It was an express brand that men shopped 5, 7, 9. The junior brands, 579. And like there was one that was really cheap, like the she, the original she. And it was called Rave. And it was like, really cheap. Like, really cheap. But like such a wave is coming on now. Then the ones with the staying power we talk about a lot. And then the new wave, it's like addicted. Garage. Garage.

A (15:49)

Garage, yeah.

C (15:50)

Booming altered state. I don't know if that's a Midwest thing we've talked about ever. Ever. Eve. Ever.

A (15:56)

Yes.

C (15:57)

Yeah, yeah, we've talked about that a little. I found it in St. Louis and I was like, what is this brand? And it's hundreds of millions of dollars in sales per year, which it's really successful.

D (16:07)

So in like the bigger cities, you'll almost always see like Gucci, Prada, the big highest end. You know more about these than I do. But that's something that I've heard about from mall folks is like, this is such a big part of it now. You know, like so many more malls have that big three or big five or whatever that is now.

C (16:28)

Yes, we did this. Everybody go back and look at it. We did a mall series on modern retail last year. I think Julia wrote a story on like, basically the luxury malls that are thriving and why, what they're doing. Right. There's a handful and it had to do with basically catering to the 1% and, and kind of balancing like how they cater to their local community with special perks and things, but also carry to inter Cater to international shoppers who are coming into Miami and they want to win those folks over and get them to shop at Prada when they're in town. So anyway, check out the story.

A (17:08)

I also wanted to say, to go back a second, we were talking about local malls and things that bring you in. But one that I forgot to mention that I've been to a couple of times recently is Tangram Mall in Flushing, which is all Asian restaurants and Asian stores. There's a big Asian immigrant population in that part of Queens and I live in Queens. It's not far from where I am, but specifically I've gone several times. They have a store called Gacha, which is an arcade on one side and then on the other side is all like blind boxes and Labubu type things. And those games were like the claw game and things like that. And I have gone several times for like a birthday party of an adult, like 33 year old person at this arcade. And then while we're there there's all these other stores and stuff. So. And I think that is a. I am not at all familiar with like what shopping malls are like in like Japan for example, but it feels very much like the strategy and the structure of that mall is imported from the retail style from various East Asian countries. So that's another one that I feel like draws people in. And if you're in the outer boroughs at all, you've probably been to Tangram Mall. But got a lot of cool stuff there and very experiential.

D (18:19)

I've noticed this within, even in Texas too, I've noticed this trend within the malls. There's so much Japanese and Asian culture just everywhere now on the, on the apparel side, like Uniqlo is starting to open up quite a bit. But like, and like you were saying, like I was at again Grapevine Mall, which is like a suburban mall, like and I was like, oh my God, there's like a Bandai Namco. Like you twist the vending machine. It's like a Gachapon, I think.

A (18:45)

Gachapon?

D (18:46)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A (18:47)

Like a capsule toy thing. Yeah.

D (18:49)

This is, this is in the middle of Texas. Or like this isn't, this isn't even like New York. You know, there's a lot of this and Miniso too, I'm a big fan of that. Has a lot of the blind boxes and a lot of, you know, not even just Asian stuff. Like they have like Disney and Snoopy, et cetera. But there's a lot of that. Like I think, I think that's like a huge, huge area right now.

C (19:16)

That's cool. And it's a novelty and it's new. It offers discovery. People we're not yet familiar with this. You may be, but yeah, I was thinking about like what the draw is of the mall and it's like, like you know, you want to just get out, get out of the house and do something.

A (19:31)

Yeah.

C (19:31)

One, you get to like try out the dining, the, I don't know, all the various components, opportunity to try things on just like any store. And then like the curation component which you know, online you're not, you're seeing so much and like it may not be the most like expert curation at like a My Teresa or a luxury multi retail, multi brand store, but it does offer something like what you know you're going to get something that you probably haven't heard of before. So that discovery kind of component, Danny, you mentioned, like the arcades and the kind of, I don't know, anchoring them all. Mitchell, tell us, do tell us about like what you've seen. Like you did write about this Netflix store that's becoming.

A (20:12)

Yeah, I want to know more about this.

D (20:14)

Well, it's not a store except it is. So Netflix House just opened up in here in Dallas as well as in I believe King of Prussia. That's Pennsylvania. And then I think they have Vegas coming potentially and maybe some others. But this is, this is a new concept that's coming to a lot of malls. Basically it's so far it's been in former department stores which is, I don't know if we've talked about yet, but you know, there's space there. But yeah, so they've, they've taken over former department stores and put in these. They call it experiences. I don't know if you call it a game or a show or what, but like here we have Stranger Things and Squid game based experiences where it's like an hour long, you pay for it and it's like an experience based on the shows. It rotates, it's different based on which mall you're at. And they also have a restaurant like at least at this location. I got to check it out. They have, they have a restaurant on the higher level with like show based food and drink and then an arcade, like a little escape room like Stranger Things. So it's, it's cool. It's. It's really cool. And it's something like the, the other thing with it is there's a mall side entrance and then you go into the mall Side entrance, and there actually is a Netflix gift shop, like a Netflix store, and they have a ton of stuff. And, like, then it goes into the mall. So, like, you can see it, like, throughout the mall. It looks like a Netflix store, which is interesting, which. Which kind of feeds. I've talked to the operator of the mall and executive at Netflix. Like, they really. They really see the mall ecosystem as important to this concept and vice versa. So that. That's a big new tenant that we might start seeing popping up throughout the country.

A (22:08)

I was going to say, if I was an apparel brand in a mall, I think I would like to see a Netflix thing like that move in next door because it brings people in and it's not necessarily direct competition in terms of another apparel store. So it kind of adds to the draw of the whole mall. That's what I thought when I was looking at it. Anyway. Do you book these ahead of time or can you just walk in?

D (22:31)

You can walk into the facility itself, and I think you booked the actual experiences, but you can just walk through there and check out the food or go to the arcade. But, like, the actual experiences, I think you book.

A (22:43)

Gotcha.

C (22:43)

I think we're gonna see a lot more of it. We all know that there's a lot of vacancies with these department store spaces with closings of JCPenney and Macy's. We just read that. I think the last year's standing is closing down. And, you know, obviously there are some that are thriving in the Midwest. I think Dillard's is doing okay. Von Mar, I think is doing okay. But, you know, sats Newman on the verge of bankruptcy. So another one that I'm seeing sprout up, opening 75 to 100 new locations by 2027. Is this Dick's House of Sports?

A (23:16)

I was going to mention that one. Yeah. Yeah.

C (23:17)

It moved into. I'm seeing it in St. Louis. Moved into the Galleria, I think in the former Macy's, but definitely a former department store. And, you know, they have climbing walls, batting cages, skating rinks, depending on the location, which, again, makes a lot of sense, I think.

A (23:33)

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that, Jill. I was going to mention the House of Sport as well, because first of all, it's like double the square footage of a normal Dick Sport, a goods store. And I saw that they say that on average, the House of Sport stores do like $35 million in annual sales. So it's like a bigger investment. But also, it seems like they are working. People are coming in to go Climb on the walls and hit baseballs and stuff. So that's why they're opening a bunch more of them because they are already proving to be extremely successful.

D (24:04)

Yeah, yeah. Just Giant mall anchors. The idea of a mall anchor is just totally changed. It can be several different things, as long as it takes the space for it.

C (24:16)

And Equinox.

A (24:18)

Yeah, yeah, there's a mall. I'm forgetting the name of it, but whenever I drive down to Maryland where my parents live, I always end up passing it on 95 because there's a huge indoor skydiving facility that's just like Giant and has the sign that's visible from the highway. That's like, I feel like. And. But that's been there for years. That's not new. But that's very much like come skydive inside and then also go to Cinnabon while you're here.

C (24:43)

That kind of thing. Nice. Are you guys hearing. It's interesting, like we're talking about the malls that are thriving. Some brands it seems, have really like just written off the idea of being in a mall altogether. Like you think of Bath and Body Works as being a mall brand. I do, but it says like we just wrote. I think it was on glossy. I think it was an Emily Jensen story that all of their 13 new store openings are in non mall locations and then they most recently, the most recent eight store closures are from within malls. So I mean, I don't know what we're defining as a mall location because we know these outdoor air kind of spaces are. Are working and evolving. I think in Mitchell you've written about. Is it Tanger. Tanger outlets and how they're. Yeah, how they're like bringing in full price stores like Barnes and Noble and Ulta Beauty. So I think that there's a lot of excitement in that area which if I was a brand, I think I'd be game to open there. Are you seeing Hope there?

A (25:42)

Yeah.

D (25:42)

And you brought up Tanger. They're traditionally the outlet mall guys and they have open air shopping centers now and at the altitude themselves. Depending on where you are, they're bringing in more food and beverage. I also wrote about Barnes and Noble and I talked to the Tanger about Barnes and Noble, oddly. And they have a few. They want to work with brands like Barnes and Noble more that bring people in. You know, people will casually just come into now and it's a lot more than just the traditional apparel play.

C (26:16)

Yep. So smart.

A (26:18)

Yeah. I also wanted to mention, you know, we talked about some of the Classic mall brands that are like thriving, like Abercrombie and Hollister. But then there's. I think there are several mall brands that I kind of think of in the same breath that have not been doing well at all. Klairs, Forever 21, JCPenney, that have all gone bankrupt or closed a lot of stores or had other kind of misfortune befall them. But I don't really know what they did differently than Abercrombie or a similar brand which seems to be doing really well. I mean, one thing is I know Gap and some of the others like J. Crew have gone a little more upmarket. Gap has Zac Posen and they've been doing more kind of fashion forward stuff. J. Crew has had Brendan Babinzian and Olympia Gayote for a while doing their designs, which I feel like was a little bit more upmarket. I don't know if that's the only thing to explain the divergence there, but I don't know if you guys had thoughts on some of those traditional mall brands that are not doing so hot.

D (27:15)

It depends on what's happening behind the scenes financially too, of course.

C (27:19)

Yeah, I think evolving with the times. Like literally the ones that we know that are thriving, like they moved faster. They were on TikTok first. Like everybody was talking about Abercrombie jeans as though they were the newest sensation. And we're like, I've been wearing Abercrombie jeans for years. So yeah, I think that they were quicker to embrace probably. I think that the influencer is very powerful and I think they were gifting left and right and saw the opportunities there for many of these that are thriving. Hollister, Abercrombie for sure. I'm thinking of things that my 15 year old niece loves and she loves Hollister and like free people and we're seeing them all over social media. So yeah, it's like right now, while everyone's considering how do they jump on the AI wave, like how do we not get left behind? So yeah, staying nimble, staying quick, all those cliches that we say a lot. It's true.

A (28:10)

So to wrap up, let's summarize a little bit based on what we've been talking about. What do we think are the two or three most important things that brands can do to make it in a mall? I mean, I feel like we touched on a lot of them already. But Mitchell, what comes to mind for you?

D (28:27)

Experiential. We talked about on trend. We talked about so influencers, creators making those partnerships. I would say Value as well in this economy.

A (28:42)

Yes.

C (28:43)

So smart. And maybe some exclusives. We did talk about that in our luxury malls that are thriving stories on modern retail. If you have things that you can only get in store or even services, if you offer things like pickup in store, all of those things still work. In terms of experiential. Back on American Dream, I remember when they opened this luxury wing and they were saying they were basically requiring. I don't know how you can enforce this, but every store had to offer something that was an experience, whether it was customization, offering, like monogramming. I think that's so smart. So things obviously that you can't get online or maybe just being there and witnessing it, like tailors doing certain things is really exciting. But yeah, experiential. So important. And ideally you are creating buzz across channels beyond irl.

A (29:36)

Yeah. And one more I would add is just like careful selection of what mall you're going to open a store in, because as we've discussed, some are doing better than others. And I think if you can be around one of those kind of fun, new, exciting anchors like the Netflix House, I'm sure it will cost you a little more, but might be worth it.

D (29:56)

Yeah. And when I was talking to the VP who oversees Netflix House, they were saying, like, they were really focused on being, you know, being like close to the center of the population as, you know, accessible and convenient to as many people as possible who would want to experience these sort of games or shows.

C (30:17)

Totally. And just like the malls with, they have this like common space that's really beautiful. You actually want to sit and hang out and have a coffee there, like, anyway, again, in terms of evolving with the times, like, oh, yeah, we didn't.

D (30:29)

Talk about cafes in mall. In mall. Mall stories.

C (30:32)

We didn't. Oh, such a hot thing.

D (30:35)

There was just a CNBC story about that that was really nice.

C (30:38)

Totally. Coaches promote another album, but it was good. But no, we. I feel like we've written about a lot of those individually. Definitely. Coach, definitely. Well, obviously we know Ralph Lauren's been doing that for years, but it makes sense. Yeah, it's like the Target Starbucks within Target. You want to get your drink and walk around.

A (30:58)

I always think that the Starbucks inside the Target should have its own smaller Target inside the Starbucks and just do like a matryoshka doll kind of situation. Okay. I think that's all the time we have. But Mitchell, thank you so much for joining the glossy Bodcast. It was great to have you on.

D (31:15)

Thank you. You too.

C (31:17)

Mitchell knows a lot about Target. Thanks M.

A (31:25)

And thank you for listening to the Glossy Podcast. Don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify wherever you listen to this, because that helps us out so much. And don't forget to subscribe to the Glossy Podcast to hear interviews with industry insiders and weekend review segments where we break down the news. The new episodes come out every Friday. Until the next time, thanks for listening.