Paloma Lanna was her own first shop girl. The Spanish born, Spain- and Portugal-made Paloma Wool launched online just over a decade ago and started doing pop-ups in 2019. Lanna has always worked the shop floors and the fitting rooms, fetching sizes and offering recommendations to shoppers keen to touch and try on the brand that lives on their IG feeds and Pinterest boards, and on celebrities from Rosalia to Hailey Bieber, Kendall Jenner to Lily Rose-Depp.
Pop-ups have been a good testing ground to see how people shop and interact with Paloma Wool IRL. “I’ve always been fascinated to see how a London girl and a Seoul girl approach us so differently,” Lanna says. When the brand’s first pop-up took place in New York, they were “unexpectedly” queued down the block. “It was a real moment of discovering people that were really following the brand. And a big learning lesson.” In every city since—Los Angeles, Milan, Copenhagen, Berlin, and more—they’ve dealt with huge lines and sell outs. DTC remains a core tenet, but IRL shopping is both more lucrative and connective to the Paloma Wool patron. “I never wanted things to feel like a ‘store,’ but a project to experiment with. Then the pop-ups were getting bigger and longer, and we want to be everywhere,” she says.
That thinking bolsters Paloma Wool’s Barcelona flagship, their biggest brick-and-mortar store and permanent home on Avinguda Diagonal. The opening on October 9 follows the brand’s spring 2026 show in Paris, their eighth runway collection.
Transcending the FYP has been a focus; Paloma Wool burst out in the golden age of the “Instagram brand,” beginning with a boldly printed and colorful 15-piece collection dropped online in 2014. Think swirling prints and corduroy purple suits, not so much the artfully minimal, earth-toned pieces seen today. In the years since, the aesthetic has shifted into more muted color palettes, fine knits, and subversive layers—bubble skirts, skants, and studded accessories. “For a long time, I’d been used to preparing collections for the internet, for Instagram and e-commerce,” she says. “Preparing a permanent store is a new challenge, combining colors and textures that look nice with our clothes. It’s a big adventure for the bigger image.” Menswear launched in spring 2024, and will continue to expand. “We’re still working out who the male customer is—not many men’s brands are at our price point with our design proposition,” says Lanna. “But it’s going well, and we plan to grow it naturally.”
At 800 square meters, the Barcelona space includes a studio for photoshoots, and, further down the line, a gallery space and fashion-focused bookstore. The Barcelona flagship has been designed by the architectural studio p0; with its arcade-inspired concept, visitors enter through a corridor that extends from the street to create two distinct environments within the space, making their own ‘street’ within the store. Thought was even put into the ‘street’ benches for weary boyfriends of shoppers to sit. “The boyfriends have been important for our journey too!” says Lanna, who often found herself entertaining partners and shopping buddies at pop-ups, loitering around the fitting rooms. “We want them to feel welcome.”
Light designer Max Milà Serra, who designed the New York shop and Lanna’s wedding, has created the interior lighting. Using custom lamps, natural and artificial light, translucent materials, and latex, the space has a diffusing glow. “It was important to create our own visual language in the real world,” says Lanna.
Lanna shares that the brand has secured a permanent London store, which will open before the end of the year in Mayfair, set within a stretch of luxury retail and independent stores not far from Liberty and Vivienne Westwood. Having previously run pop-ups in east London’s Shoreditch, Lanna says they required more space and a central location. This seems to reflect a repositioning of the brand, more in line with bigger luxury retailers.
“More permanent stores in the cities with our biggest communities are coming,” Lanna confirms. In the showroom-like space, pieces are labeled with a number that shoppers jot down on a pad and hand back to shop assistants to fit out their dressing room. “It’s a system we first kind of invented to survive the pop-ups,” says Lanna. “People were just grabbing pieces, and it’s important to have a calm space where you can take your time to look at pieces. Having a pencil in your hand is not so common. We want this to be a peaceful moment.”
Making the store more of a “third space” and establishing the gallery and bookstore is also important for the brand, which has previously worked with artists like Isabella Benshimol on a temporary exhibition in Milan and clothing capsule. “The core of the brand is our collaborations,” Lanna says. “And I have always thought it a pity that we don’t have a permanent space to show them. I’m happy we now have this place to experiment and play.”
Next comes London and another extended, 10-month pop-up in Paris. Retail opportunities will be taken up as they appear, focusing on principal cities like Paris and Los Angeles. “We don’t want to rush, we’ll do things properly,” Lanna says. “We are an independent brand supporting our own growth, and we will do it organically to stay independent. Little by little.”
“The clothes are so special but it’s always been about building a world.”
