When Brianna Heath walked into a salon in her New York City neighbourhood last year, she figured she’d be in and out for a routine trim.

Heath typically gets her hair done in braiding salons in Brooklyn’s predominately Black neighbourhoods, but on that day she wanted a quick cut of her split ends somewhere near her apartment.

But the haircut resulted in several inches of Heath’s curly tresses being chopped off. “It was a bad, bad, bad curly cut,” she said. “The stylist was really rough with my hair and cut way more off than I wanted.”

The encounter left a sour taste in Heath’s mouth and made her feel inferior, she added.

For beauty consumers with textured hair like Heath — including wavy, curly and coily hair types — it’s an experience that’s all too common. Despite the fact that people with textured hair make up an estimated 65 percent of the world’s population, according to beauty research firm Pivot Point, the US hair services industry is highly segregated, with licensed professionals typically trained on only straight hair types. The industry has a long history of discrediting Black hairstyles such as braids, locs and twists as unprofessional and unworthy of study. This means professionals and salons looking to fill this gap and service clients with textured hair, who are commonly people of colour, have to seek additional training. Many are unlicensed; these businesses are disproportionately Black-owned and serve as pillars for their communities.

But change is finally afoot. Last month, Connecticut became the fourth US state to mandate cosmetology and barber schools to include textured hair care in their curriculum, joining Louisiana, New York and Minnesota, which enacted similar laws in the past three years.

The laws promise to radically change the beauty landscape, allowing textured hair consumers to enter into any hair salon and have access to qualified personnel. New required training also means when salons hire future licensed employees, they could create potential new revenue streams by acquiring a new set of diverse customers.

These laws hope to show that the styling and treatment of textured hair is “a legitimate and long lasting career field,” said Myra Reddy, director of government affairs at Professional Beauty Association, a non-profit trade organisation.

“Everyone is deserving of going to a licensed establishment and receiving hair care services from a licensed, trained individual,” she added.

What does the new legislation require?

The Louisiana, New York, Minnesota and now Connecticut laws all aim to expand access to licensed hair professionals for people with textured hair, arguing that when hair salons and barber shops fail to provide certain services, even if it’s out of a lack of experience, they are engaging in a form of race-based hair discrimination.

These new policies expand on the Crown Act, the first state-wide law prohibiting race-based hair discrimination enacted in California five years ago. Since then, 26 states have adopted their own versions.

The four new laws go a step further by requiring all new cosmetology school graduates to take a course on the styling, cutting and treatment of curly, coily and tight textured hair. Students will be tested on these skills by their state’s cosmetology boards.

“[The] knowledge gap disproportionately impacts women and girls of colour with textured and diverse hair who face challenges in seeking out services that meet their needs,” New York Senator Jamaal Bailey, who sponsored the legislation in his state, said in a statement.

On a national level, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, has introduced the Texture Positive Act into the House of Representatives which, if passed, will incentivise textured hair education across cosmetology schools in the US. The bill has 16 co-sponsors across 10 states.

Does the beauty industry support these laws?

Some beauty organisations have been advocating for the closure of the textured hair knowledge gap for decades.

The New York and Connecticut laws have been championed by the Professional Beauty Association, which lobbies legislators on issues affecting the beauty industry, as well as the Textured Hair Collective, an alliance of hair industry leaders with a goal of making hair education more inclusive. The Textured Hair Collective has corporate members including hair care brands Deva Curl, Aveda and beauty conglomerate L’Oréal.

The professional beauty services industry does not have a national standard for occupational licensing, which means cosmetology schools in different states could have drastically different curricula. This is in stark contrast with markets such as the UK which has mandated textured hair education through its National Occupational Standards. This has meant that the two lobbying groups must approach lawmakers in all 50 US states in order to get these bills passed across the country.

Consumer brands who have historically influenced the textured hair education space, such as Deva Curl, which owned and operated a hair academy training stylists on the treatment of textured hair, will likely benefit from cosmetology schools seeking their expertise when developing their new curricula, said Malek Varano, Deva Curl’s senior director of global brand and digital marketing.

Penetrating the school system would be a way for brands like Deva Curl to increase consumer awareness, she added.

How will they be enforced?

Cosmetology schools will be responsible for updating their own curricula. In New York, the schools were given six months from the law’s passing in November to its adoption in April to develop a new textured hair course. Cosmetology schools that fail to adopt new curricula or expand their textured hair courses will face civil penalties such as fines.

Licensing exams in Louisiana, New York, Minnesota and Connecticut will include textured-hair specific questions that students will be expected to answer correctly for them to receive an operating licence. The laws will only affect new graduates from cosmetology schools and will not impact stylists who were licensed in previous years.

Reddy said the adoption of the new curricula should not be a heavy lift for schools as the two major textbooks cosmetology students use, Milady and Pivot Point, already include sections on styling textured hair.

“We’re asking that they use the information in the books, and that they integrate that information every day, not just for a small segment of the student’s training,” she said.

What about existing salons that don’t yet provide textured hair services?

While the laws don’t go as far as offering additional training for existing hair care professionals, salons that opt to hire new cosmetology graduates will benefit from their mandated textured hair training. If they choose to embrace this new required expertise, they have the opportunity to garner a new set of diverse clientele and boost revenues, according to Reddy.

Still, these businesses would have to build trust with a set of consumers that have historically been excluded, and winning them over may be an uphill battle.

L Catterton, the private equity firm backed by French luxury fashion house LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, has agreed to buy Hammerson Plc’s stake in outlet mall landlord Value Retail in a deal representing an enterprise value of £1.5 billion ($1.9 billion).

The transaction includes interests in nine luxury retail properties outside major European cities including the Bicester shopping village, about 60 miles north west of London, according to a statement Monday. It will generate cash proceeds of £600 million for Hammerson, which has been on a multiyear drive to sell assets and cut debt as it grapples with plunging retail property rents and values.

Shares of Hammerson rose as much as 10.2 percent in London on Monday, their biggest intraday gain in more than eight months, on plans to buy back as much as £140 million in stock from the sale proceeds and to enhance dividend payouts to 80-85 percent of adjusted earnings.

While Value Retail’s prized outlet malls that lure millions of international shoppers have been among properties most resilient to the rise of online shopping, Hammerson has long sought an exit of its minority stake in part because of its lack of control over the company.

“The disposal focuses our portfolio on prime urban real estate with a transformed capital structure and the capacity and capability to advance our strategy in higher yielding opportunities with stronger returns, whilst enhancing returns to shareholders,” Hammerson chief executive officer Rita-Rose Gagne said.

The deal, which is at a 24 percent discount to gross asset value, will reduce Hammerson’s loan to value ratio to 23 percent. It also leaves the company’s portfolio focused on large malls and mixed use developments in city centres. The transaction is expected to complete in the second half of this year.

The proposed buyback amount of £140 million represents roughly 10 percent of its market capitalisation.

L Catterton has become an increasingly active investor in prime retail properties as it looks to exert more control over the top locations for its brands.

“We have deep experience investing in luxury retail, and we are eager to leverage our operational expertise and global network of established relationships to partner with Value Retail and propel the business forward,” L Catterton global co-chief executive officer Michael Chu said.

Eastdil Secured, Morgan Stanley and Lazard advised Hammerson on the deal while JPMorgan Chase & Co. acted for L Catterton.

By Jack Sidders

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The Future of Luxury Discounting

With outlets and online discounters set to grow five times faster than full-price channels, luxury brands are hoping to tap the momentum in off-price — without being seen to do so.

LuisaViaRoma has landed in New York City.

On Monday, the Italian retailer opened a new store in New York’s NoHo neighbourhood, its first outpost outside its home country. Fittingly, the 16,500-square-foot space is peppered with Italian touches such as tall columns, black fixtures and flooring made of clay imported from Tuscany.

Those elements may make the store feel a bit like a museum, but it also features interactive screens for shoppers to browse and place orders from its website, a nod to the fact that around 90 percent of the company’s projected €450 million ($490 million) in gross merchandise volume — a measure of sales generated through its online and physical stores — will come from e-commerce in 2024.

The stylishly dark and moody outpost is more than just LuisaViaRoma’s first attempt at international expansion since it opened its doors in Florence 95 years ago. It’s also a bid to recapture the retail magic of once-iconic, now-shuttered multi-brand stores like Barneys or Opening Ceremony,.

“Many iconic multi-brand stores that define New York City have closed in recent years, and they have not been replaced in the hearts of New York consumers,” Andorlini said. “LuisaViaRoma aims to become the new destination for sophisticated and conscious shoppers.”

Specialty stores are growing in popularity, offering consumers better curation and more personalised customer service than department stores, and giving brands a wholesale alternative to struggling multi-brand retailers.

But most are local go-tos, not global powerhouses. Expansion mainly occurs domestically: Miami-based The Webster is opening two new stores in the US in 2024; New York-based Kirna Zabete is opening a store in Miami this year. Milan-based 10 Corso Como’s lower Manhattan location, meanwhile, became a casualty of the pandemic, closing in 2020 after only two years as it struggled to find an audience.

LuisaViaRoma has reason to believe its New York opening will resonate. The company generates 25 percent of its online sales in the US, with New York as its biggest market. Its overall sales are set to increase 15 percent this year and US sales are projected to rise as much as 50 percent. With the new shop, located on Bond Street, LuisaViaRoma expects its US business to double by 2026, said Tommaso Andorlini, the company’s chief executive.

The New York store will be a test of LuisaViaRoma’s adaptability to a milieu outside of Italy, but also of New Yorkers’ appetites for a well-curated multi-brand retail experience. LuisaViaRoma may have a reputation at home, but that doesn’t mean discerning, fashion-obsessed New Yorkers will choose the retailer over homegrown favourites like Kirna Zabete in SoHo or La Garçonne in Tribeca.

“Long gone are the days where you can spend a lot of money to open, therefore you are successful. New Yorkers are highly educated fashion people,” said Julie Gilhart, a fashion consultant and former long-time fashion director at Barneys. “[LuisaViaRoma] is not going to be successful on their name alone. New Yorkers are not like that.”

Making a Mark

LuisaViaRoma’s chances at success begins with the right location. For example, 10 Corso Como’s experimental format and avant garde offering didn’t translate to Manhattan’s seaport area, where mass retailers take precedence, said Robert Burke, a retail veteran and consultant.

LuisaViaRoma, on the other hand, is located on Bond Street in the already fashionable and monied NoHo. It has a slew of high-profile neighbours, including Gigi Hadid’s cashmere brand Guest in Residence, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop and anointed menswear store CHCM.

Inside, LuisaViaRoma has infused local touches alongside the Italian accents. There are books from the nearby Dashwood Books at the front of the store and music curated by Arman Naféei, the former music director for André Balazs’ hotels (including Chateau Marmont and Chiltern Firehouse).

Atmosphere aside, it’s a specialty store’s brand selection that ultimately wins over the local customer. LuisaViaRoma’s store carries 100 brands, including New York mainstays Proenza Schouler, Nili Lotan and Gabriela Hearst. A downstairs lounge with luminous pink walls will host private appointments for VIP clients, as well as select couture pieces and fine jewellery. Looking ahead, LuisaViaRoma plans to ramp up its mix of emerging brands, which are increasingly pivotal to specialty stores as established labels pull back from multi-brand retailers and increase investments in their direct channels.

“There’s still pings of the loss of Barneys, [which] always had an interesting mix of the major labels and new discoveries,” Burke said. “That is a very important point to look at with retail today.”

Where the retailer can stand out right now is its technological savvy. The interactive screens, for example, make sense as an offering for modern shoppers, who often browse online while visiting brick-and mortar-locations. LuisaViaRoma’s intent to connect its online and in-store experiences can become a point of differentiation, potentially giving it a leg up by understanding its shoppers and how to serve them better.

“More than anything, you have to have a very clear vision of who your customer is when you expand internationally,” Burke said. “I’m sure [LuisaViaRoma’s] website has educated them enormously on their US customers.”