Claire’s, Your Kids’ First Jewelry Store, Goes From Malls to Macy’s

Claire’s, the inexpensive jeweler where you may have let your kids get their ears pierced, is teaming up with Macy’s to open fashion accessories boutiques inside the legendary mall anchor.

For decades, Claire’s could be found as one of the standard chain stores situated in-line at just about every mall in America, including the Mall of America. Malls are where you’ll frequently find Macy’s as well – but as an “anchor store” with one of the premium spots at the end of the hall.

The two are coming together with Claire’s announcing it is opening in more than 20 Macy’s, including such flagship stores in Herald Square and Roosevelt Field in New York City; South Coast Plaza in Los Angeles, Union Square in San Francisco; and Dadeland and Aventura in Miami.

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In those store-in-store locations, seasonal products will be available as well as year-round jewelry, hair accessories and cosmetics. An icon for its front-of-the-store piercing services, Claire’s owns and operates 2,300 stores in North America and Europe, as well as 300 franchised units in the Middle East and South Africa. Macy’s operates more than 500 stores.

“Macy’s and Claire’s are two iconic brands in fashion with a longstanding commitment to being destination for inspirational and accessible style for generations of consumers,” said Ryan Vero, chief executive officer of Claire’s. “We help celebrate special moments, and with this partnership, we are combining our brand power to reach new customers and serve them with the latest on-trend accessories in time for the holiday shopping season and beyond.”

The Claire’s-Macy’s store-within-a-store concept is not new to department stores. For decades, many department and big box stores leased out space for all sorts of third-party retailers for footwear, jewelry and cosmetics, among other departments. But brands operating under their true corporate identity, outside of fast-food outlets and coffee shops (think Starbucks in Target, for example), was less common.

Increasingly, shoppers are seeing more name-brand companies pairing up with department stores and their ilk. Sephora has had store-within-a-store locations in Macy’s as well as in 600 Kohl’s; Macy’s raised Toys R Us from the dead more than once, opening Toys R Us-labeled shops within Macy’s stores. And, as we told you, Apple stores are popping up in Target stores and even streamer Netflix has put its brand in Walmart stores.