Kat the Label Opens First New York Flagship on Lafayette Street

Kat the Label opened its first New York City store on Friday, occupying 1,076 square feet at 242 Lafayette Street in SoHo. The opening establishes the Australian intimates brand’s first permanent U.S. retail location.

What does the New York store change?

Kat the Label now combines owned stores and e-commerce with wholesale distribution through:

• Wholesale: Revolve, Anthropologie, Free People, Shopbop, Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom and other retail partners.
• Owned channels: Kat the Label stores and e-commerce.

Founder Kate Nixon, who started the label in 2015, said: “A more permanent store seemed like the natural next step for us.”

Her online focus has defined the business for most of its decade. The New York opening adds a physical selling and presentation channel without replacing established e-commerce or wholesale routes to market. Nixon said the U.S. online presence had grown quickly over the previous couple of years.

The move extends a measured channel strategy rather than resetting distribution. Kat the Label disclosed no sales target, store investment, staffing plan, margin, supplier terms or inventory allocation. For brand and sourcing teams, those omissions leave the launch’s commercial scale and profitability unquantified.

What did the pop-ups reveal?

Before opening SoHo, Kat the Label had run pop-ups in New York and used the May event to test customer demand for bridal, holiday and honeymoon purchases. Nixon said brides had sought getting-ready looks and pajama sets for bridesmaids, showing demand around wedding parties, holidays and honeymoons.

The label sells romantic sleepwear, feminine lace lingerie and white bridal intimates. Its celebrity following includes Sabrina Carpenter and Kylie Jenner. A special capsule marked Marilyn Monroe’s 100th anniversary in May.

What is inside the 1,076-square-foot flagship?

The SoHo store carries:

• Core categories: Lingerie, sleepwear and bridal collections.
• Launch merchandise: A new holiday collection and all-white ensembles.
• Named bestsellers: Maverick, Nicolette and Sofia bras, plus the Celeste slipdress.

Interiors use cool blue and contrasting espresso brown, extending the brand’s visual system from its Melbourne flagship to New York. Nixon said the colors were intended to make the lingerie stand out. She characterized the result as beautiful, chic and expensive-looking while stressing that the product price remained affordable.

Melbourne-based Angus Edward Interior Design Office designed the sister store. The Australian interior designer traveled to New York to bring the concept to life.

A private bridal suite accepts bookings for private styling experiences starting Nov. 1. The suite gives the store a service-led bridal proposition, extending the use case observed at the May pop-up into a permanent venue.

How does the store position the brand?

Nixon said Kat the Label avoids overt sexualization and products framed mainly for men buying gifts for girlfriends, emphasizing a female gaze across product design, advertising and social media. She said the brand aims to make customers feel special, empowered and competent even when the garment remains underneath.

Anna Metcalfe, head of marketing and growth, added that the opening offer included a gift with purchase from the brand’s friends, including Emmi Jay. Coffee, matcha and flower giveaways accompanied the promotion. Neither the gift nor the other giveaways had disclosed values or an end date in the announcement.

Nixon said physical retail had not been in her plans 10 years earlier, when she started an online-focused business. She called the in-person touchpoint amazing and said stepping into retail had proved exciting. The comments measure internal enthusiasm rather than store performance; the launch supplied no conversion or sales data.

What comes next?

Nixon said: “Hopefully [we’ll open] a couple more stores across Australia, and we’d love more in the U.S. of course.” The wording identifies ambitions rather than signed leases or dated openings, and no additional locations, capital commitments or timelines were disclosed publicly for either market.

Until Kat the Label discloses sales, store costs and a rollout schedule, New York stands as the first owned-store test of whether its growing U.S. online presence converts into sustained sales. The next commercial checkpoints are store-level performance, customer conversion and evidence that the proposed Australian and U.S. expansion follows.