Marni Opening Pop-up Inside Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus

Marni is looking to bring more of its brand to Los Angeles with a new pop-up shop inside the Neiman Marcus store in Beverly Hills.

Although the Italian brand already has a stand-alone retail store in West Hollywood, it’s opening a new dedicated pop-up space inside Neiman’s for just three weeks, dubbed “Marnifesto,” the same name given to the spring 2021 show and collection from creative director Francesco Risso. The department store already carries Marni’s women’s ready-to-wear, but the pop-up will include women’s, men’s and accessories from its spring 2021 collection.

Monica Voltolina, chief executive officer of Marni, said the department store pop-up “represents an exciting moment for us and is a great way to represent the Marnifesto collection.”

“For us, this is an opportunity to make retail more personal and engage the customers with the brand in a new way,” she said. The pop-up also marks Marni’s first pop-up or retail “activation” outside of its existing stores since the coronavirus pandemic began. It will only be open for about three weeks, from Friday to April 13. While the Neiman’s pop-up is a one off at the moment, the store does represent the start of the brand strategically shifting its presence in retail stores.

Voltolina added that the themes of the collection being “poetry, positive thinking, unity, inclusion, love” are all elements that “our clients are looking for at this time.”

Marni has previously set up pop-up like spaces, like Marni Market a few years back, and such moves have consistently driven sales and even waitlists among retailers hoping to host such spaces.

Around the time of the spring show, Risso told WWD that the new collection was not about making “a statement” or traditional inspirations.

“It’s the opposite,” he said. “This has been almost like a social experiment where the dialogue between me and the people I work with is central to construct this collection.”

Paolo Riva, who heads up brand partnerships and merchandising for Marni, noted that the colorful, bold prints of the collection included in the pop-up (this time almost entirely black, white and red) are already popular with luxury shoppers at Neiman’s, but that there will be an added element of finding something new within the temporary space.

“We know our customers are going to love discovering Marni’s elevated looks and a sophisticated femininity in an interactive pop-up,” Riva said.

Executives would not comment on the possibility of future pop-ups or its retail strategy going forward.