Four months after launching in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood, Sommetbeauty is reopening in the Upper East Side.
The luxury retailer from Jane Fernandez, former president of clean beauty retailer Onda Beauty, opened its doors on Madison Avenue and 69th Street on Tuesday. Sommetbeauty, which refers to the French word for “summit,” is inspired by classic French pharmacies and eclectic New York City beauty emporiums like Zitomer that sell premium beauty products across a range of price points.
The store’s 500-square-foot location carries 150 stockkeeping units spanning skincare, body care and haircare from 25 clean beauty brands, including Venn, De Mamiel, Superegg, Irene Forte, Dalegerard, Roz, Furtuna Skin, Biography and Lesse. Product prices range from about $50 to $400. Sommetbeauty will offer facial and massage services starting at $400 and $350, respectively.
Describing Sommetbeauty’s space as a “jewel box,” Fernandez says creating “very niche private spaces” is her vision for the retailer. She explains, “It makes you feel like the offering is more exclusive.”
Sommetbeauty briefly set up shop at Onda Beauty’s former Tribeca location in September last year soon after Onda Beauty’s previous parent company Amyris shuttered the retailer and filed for bankruptcy. Onda Beauty’s Hampton Bays location also rebranded to Sommetbeauty at the same time. However, once Onda Beauty co-founder Larissa Thomson made a bid for the Tribeca location in bankruptcy court, Sommetbeauty vacated the property less than a month into its operations. Thomson has since reopened Onda as the sole proprietor.
Fernandez, who originally joined Onda Beauty as CEO in early 2021 before assuming the position of president following Amyris’s acquisition of the retailer in 2022, wasn’t interested in getting involved in a bidding war for the Tribeca store. She says, “That’s a lot of capital and a lot of stress for a non-guarantee.”
A resident of the Upper East Side, Fernandez set about finding a new location for Sommetbeauty in her neighborhood that would cater to an Uptown woman craving a bespoke, luxury experience. “When you’re opening physical retail, certainly in Manhattan, you want to have some organic grassroots community,” she says. “This is my grassroots community, so I might as well start here.”
At Sommetbeauty, Fernandez tapped Dale Rozmiarek, founder of the luxury clean fragrance brand Dalegerard and visual merchandiser with decades of experience at Barneys New York and Calvin Klein, to cultivate a personalized and intimate space that encourages interaction. The store features a center table filled with testers from every brand in its assortment.
A curtain separates the product assortment from private treatment room, where customers can book facials on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and massages on Friday and Sunday. Pursuant to its French pharmacy inspiration, aestheticians provide tailored skincare routines to clients on what Fernandez describes as “prescription pads.” Customers can make shopping appointments at Sommetbeauty on Monday and Saturday.
Fernandez underscores, “The ultimate luxury is a space all to yourself.”
Concerned by the recent uptick in medical aesthetic treatments, especially among younger consumers, Fernandez aims to impart a message about the benefits of aging gracefully with Sommetbeauty. “I’m trying to help women young and old recognize their beauty as they are in their natural state. How can we enhance that? Well, we can make you glow, and we can make you feel good. We can restore your mind and your soul, which is a huge part of beauty and wellness, and we can help you feel relaxed by releasing your tension with our facials and massages,” she says. “Let’s be preventative and let’s be proactive, but in a natural way.”
Fernandez and Sommetbeauty’s in-house aesthetician trial a brand’s products for several weeks before bringing it into the assortment. Skincare products with luxe branding, packaging and textures are prioritized. Fernandez is targeting early clean beauty brands that Onda Beauty had been phasing out to make room for buzzier brands. As it stands now, about 20% of the retailer’s assortment overlaps with Onda Beauty’s assortment under Amyris.
Speaking of brands like De Mamiel, Fernandez says, “Those are some of the OGs, and they’ve been around the longest and they’re kind of the best. Why wouldn’t I revisit that line, and why wouldn’t I expand it?”
Sommetbeauty’s Hampton Bays location is in the midst of a curation shake-up as Fernandez adds more luxury brands to its selection. Tucked away within a high-end centuries-old inn called Canoe Place Inn & Cottages, the location first opened in the summer of 2022. Subject to high seasonal traffic from the hotel, Canoe Place’s sales grew more than five times between the summer of 2023 and its opening. Fernandez projects that growth will plod along at a similar pace this summer.
Fernandez is bootstrapping Sommetbeauty’s Upper East Side location. Reflecting on her time at Onda Beauty, she says, “There were lots of points where capital got in the way of what we wanted to do. Even though it’s the ultimate enabler, it can also be a disabler. I think most people don’t know that not all dollars are equal.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.