Sephora is planting its flag in London’s Westfield shopping mall because it makes its brick-and-mortar return to the U.K.

Confirming a previous report by WWD, Sephora, a part of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, said it can open its first location within the U.K. since 2005 within the White City-located mall in West London in March.

The world has undergone a metamorphosis in recent times, with the nearby former BBC Television Center was a swanky SoHo House complete with a rooftop pool.

Other tenants at Westfield London include Apple, Coach, Gucci, Boots, Jimmy Choo, Aesop, Tommy Hilfiger, Kiehl’s and Mulberry.

Of its return to the U.K., Sarah Boyd, the brand new managing director of Sephora U.K., told WWD she believes the U.K. is home to the “essentially the most exciting dynamic beauty lover on the earth.”

“It’s a very exciting place to work in beauty and to take into consideration beauty and to have a look at the style. It’s also a really big market,” she said. “The timing has been an issue of really finding the fitting method to enter the market and once we purchased Feelunique just over a 12 months ago now, that was the right time to give you the chance to return back in.”

As for this specific retail location, she added that while there are a lot of other locations that Sephora is considering for the long run, Westfield London is “that perfect environment where you’ve got the combination between mass market and luxury.”

“It’s the fitting mixture of experiential and [food and beverage], in addition to shopping. You’ll be able to imagine going and spending an entire day there,” she noted, adding that it has some really great flagships. “It really felt like the fitting place to start out.”

Katie Wyle, general manager at Westfield London, said Sephora has been one of the crucial requested stores by customers. “The launch of their store marks the expansion of our beauty offer and can be a landmark moment for beauty fans.”

The shop will span 600 square meters and be wrapped in Sephora’s iconic black-and-white stripes, while the inside, the primary of its kind on the earth, will offer double-height ceilings, soft geometric shapes, ambient lighting, textured finishes and greenery.

Other features include self-checkout, a central beauty hub, wrapping stations and an area for services akin to skin diagnostics, makeup and a Profit Brow Bar. Services like Hydrafacial, present in lots of U.S. Sephora locations, are into account, Boyd confirmed.

Launching with 135 brands, it can also give U.K. shoppers exclusive access to brands akin to Gxve by Gwen Stefani, Vegamour, Skinfix, Commodity, JVN, One/Size by Patrick Starrr, Refy, Danessa Myricks, Kosas, Makeup by Mario, Sunday Riley, Glow Recipe, Tarte, in addition to Sephora’s own Sephora Collection.

As well as, there can be a big assortment of premium brands, including Sisley, Gucci Makeup, Tom Ford and Dior, and Sephora may also have its loyalty program in London, even though it is a little bit different from other markets.

This isn’t Sephora’s first foray into the U.K. The retailer opened its first store there in 2000 in Bluewater shopping mall in Kent, opening nine doors overall. But in 2005, they were shuttered, unable to interrupt through amid intense competition from Boots and others.

Nevertheless, in 2021, Sephora, founded in France by Dominique Mandonnaud in 1970, made its first step into reentering Britain, acquiring the web prestige beauty retailer Feelunique in a deal valued at 132 million kilos. That has been rebranded as sephora.co.uk. Feelunique shipped about 80,000 products per day.

“It’s precisely that Sephora is a brand itself that we could succeed in numerous continents,” Sylvie Moreau, the retailer’s president of Europe and the Middle East said in October, noting that Sephora was the one multibrand retailer to make the highest 100 rating of best global brands for 2021, compiled by Interbrand.

There’s much to play for within the British beauty market. In response to Euromonitor, it’s the second largest European beauty market after Germany and is in the highest 10 worldwide.

Euromonitor previously forecast revenues within the British beauty market to hit $17.32 billion in 2022, with annual growth expected to be 4.1 percent every year until 2026.

As for what’s next, Boyd remained tight-lipped about if there can be additional stores opening this 12 months and where they may very well be.

“It’s too soon to speak in regards to the future because we’d like to see what happens here first,” she said. “We’re planning for more stores, but timelines are a bit vague in the meanwhile. We’re taking a look at locations, talking to landlords, but fundamentally we wish to grasp what happens once we open our first store.”

WWD understands that Sephora had viewed space on the shopping center on the positioning of the previous Battersea Power Station in south London.

On whether Sephora could expand outside of London across the U.K., Boyd said: “I wouldn’t be drawn on that one yet….We’re doing our network planning review straight away.”