The beauty category is transforming. Luxury is growing, fragrance is consolidating its dominance, longevity is rewriting skincare, and the contest is increasingly being fought on the physical floor.

Across IADS members, beauty maintained its share of total turnover at an average of 16% in 2024 and 2025. Yet beyond the headline stability, the forces reshaping the category are anything but quiet: luxury and fragrance are surging, new skincare paradigms are emerging, and the physical store is being rethought.

Luxury and fragrances take the lead

The most decisive shift recorded across IADS members is the accelerating migration toward luxury. The luxury segment now accounts for 52% of beauty sales on average, up sharply from 39% the prior year on a like-for-like basis, a gain that has come predominantly at the expense of the prestige and premium segments.

Within product categories, fragrance has emerged as the undisputed engine of growth, rising to 56% of beauty sales, and taking share from both skincare and makeup. This trend is particularly pronounced at Tryano (Chalhoub Group), where niche fragrances are performing exceptionally well. El Palacio de Hierro has responded to this dynamic by opening La Galería Olfativa, a dedicated niche fragrance destination in its flagship store, and describes its younger consumers as highly educated about ingredients and deeply committed to their personal olfactive identity. Galeries Lafayette and Manor continue to expand their niche fragrance portfolios, anticipating further growth. Niche fragrance brands have also proved resilient to promotional pressure across markets and demographics.

Beyond the wrinkle cream: longevity, dermo-cosmetics and Asian beauty 

The language of anti-ageing is being replaced by the vocabulary of longevity, a shift El Palacio de Hierro reads as a cultural inflexion point with real commercial consequences. Brands now frame their offer around cellular health, energy and lifespan, incorporating vitamins, sleep optimisation and nutrition into their propositions, placing the department store at the intersection of beauty and preventive health. Biohacking is part of the same movement: Manor points to NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) and NMN (nicotinamide mononucleotide), compounds associated with cellular energy and longevity, as among the most closely watched developments in the supplement space. Meanwhile, beauty tech is earning permanent space on the floor rather than sitting in seasonal corners: device brands such as Foreo and Medicube are moving from novelty to assortment staples.

The rise of dermo-cosmetics is accelerating the longevity shift. Younger consumers visit dermatologists more frequently than any previous generation and arrive in-store better educated and hungry for clinical skincare, as El Palacio de Hierro noted in Mexico. In France, Galeries Lafayette has acted on this by opening a large French pharmacy space within its Wellness Galerie in Haussmann, which drew traffic from its first day.

As Boyner mentioned, the appeal of Asian beauty in Turkey rests on a combination of high-performance formulations, accessible price points and a strong affinity with younger, digitally engaged consumers. K-Beauty is established across most markets, with Manor already beyond its introduction phase. C-Beauty (Chinese beauty) and J-Beauty (Japanese beauty) are the next wave, with J-Beauty proving particularly compelling in haircare and makeup. Brands such as Oshima Tsubaki and Fino illustrate the category's momentum. This intersects with a broader move into scalp care, which members are beginning to build out as the skincare mindset extends to the scalp.

Men's beauty: fragrance leads, grooming consolidates

Men's beauty is maturing unevenly. Fragrance is the clear engine, with men increasingly buying for themselves rather than receiving beauty as a gift, and established skincare and grooming names such as Clinique and Clarins outperforming newer entrants. Men's makeup, by contrast, remains a slow build across most markets.

Online keeps taking share

Online continued to gain ground, rising to an average of 16% of members' beauty turnover in 2025, up from 14% a year earlier, with a wide spread among members. Growth is now less about presence than about matching category to channel, since not every beauty segment converts the same way online.

Reimagining the shop floor: services, space and identity

Services, too, are being reassessed. Barbershops are consistently top performers wherever they open, as at Magasin du Nord and El Palacio de Hierro, whose paid-service ecosystem enjoys strong client acceptance because services are embedded in the store's self-definition as a destination rather than a shop. Its operators are local and vary by city and store, reflecting a community-based clientele.

Beyond commercial strategy, IADS partner and retail analyst Newstores urged multi-brand retailers to own their environment, warning against the visual cacophony in which retailers' own voices disappear. The clearest example of getting this right, according to Newstores, is Douglas's Cologne flagship, where even Charlotte Tilbury's maximalist aesthetic has been toned down to sit coherently within Douglas's identity, and where AI-powered smart mirrors add to the experience without overwhelming it. Boots' new fragrance-only store in London applies the same discipline: the brands are present, but the environment is unmistakably Boots.

Global beauty retail points to an era of creative ambition and format experimentation. Harmay's Beijing flagship deploys industrial minimalism to radical effect, stripping away all distraction. Tamburins in Tokyo places a giant dachshund sculpture where product display would normally sit, because stopping traffic is itself a commercial act. Holland & Barrett's Cardiff store opens with no product at all — just cushions, seating and a single question: "How are you feeling?" Rituals on Oxford Street runs a wellness clinic on its first floor whose treatment cabins stay consistently occupied, justifying the investment on one of the world's most expensive retail streets. The lesson is common to all: beauty retail that is merely a place to buy products is no longer enough.

The forces shaping beauty in department stores today are complex. Consumers are better informed, more demanding and more selective than before. Categories once kept separate — beauty and wellness, product and service, skincare and nutrition — are converging into hybrid formats that test the limits of traditional retail organisation. Against this backdrop, the department store's most valuable asset is its capacity to offer what no algorithm, marketplace or mono-brand environment can replicate: the depth of a curated multi-brand universe and a genuine sense of discovery.

About Newstores

Newstores is a service that delivers daily information about stores that have just opened, been refurbished or remodelled. It analyses what this means for the market and where it points in terms of trends and the direction that retail is taking. Newstores provides a global view of what’s happening from Seoul to London, and from Mexico to Dubai. Issuing four annual trend reports detailing the major moves, Newstores helps retailers make informed decisions. Newstores is compiled, edited and written by John Ryan, a retailer and journalist with more than 30 years of experience, covering all categories, from food to fashion.

Contact: johnhilldown@aol.com 

About IADS

The International Association of Department Stores (IADS) is the only expert body specialising globally in the department store retail format. Consisting of leading department store members worldwide, the Association serves as an international network that facilitates exchange and communication among its members. It also conducts research to address the current challenges of department stores and provide actionable insights for its members.

Today, IADS permanent members include Almacenes Siman (El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica), Beijing Hualian Group (PRC), Bloomingdale’s (USA), Boyner (Turkey), Breuninger (Germany), Chalhoub Group (UAE), Centro Beco (Venezuela), El Corte Inglés (Spain), El Palacio de Hierro (Mexico), Falabella (Chile, Colombia and Peru), Galeries Lafayette (France), John Lewis & Partners (UK), Lifestyle International Holding (Hong Kong), Magasin du Nord (Denmark), Manor (Switzerland), The Mall Group (Thailand), TSUM Kyiv (Ukraine). These retail leaders are joined by a network of other department stores and retail companies as corresponding members.

Together, the IADS members, all key players in their respective markets, create a landscape of diverse business models and cultures, representing more than € 41 billion in combined annual turnover, achieved through over 563 stores and 257,000 associates in 32 countries.

Through its activities and partnerships with Retail Hub, RH-ISAC, and Newstores, the Association remains constantly up to date on its members’ questions and challenges. It generates solution-driven problem-solving processes for its members, preparing them to face the future of the retail industry.

Press Contact: IADS, press@iads.org

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