Aelia fashions a Malaga Airport boutique with bespoke shop-in-shops‎

Aelia España, the joint venture between Aelia Group and its sister company SGEL, has inaugurated a 242sq m multi-brand fashion store in the new Terminal 3 at Malaga Airport.

 

The high-end 242sq m outlet, known as Your Fashion Store, is in a prominent location in the central retail area of the new T3. It offers a mix of luxury and casual fashion brands selected to appeal to the passenger profile of the new terminal; typically 25-40 year olds travelling mainly from the UK (39% of total traffic) and Spain (25%), as well as from Norway, Germany and other destinations visiting Marbella.

The boutique uses a shop-in-shop concept, which has proved to be successful for Aelia in fashion stores elsewhere in locations such as Sydney as well as in Paris – where sales grew by over +30% in H1 2010. It also showcases the personality of the individual fashion brands on offer in bespoke shopping environments, Aelia said.

Brands new to Aelia, and introduced at the Malaga airport store for the first time, include Desigual, Hackett and Pepe Jeans. Also on offer are collections from Hugo Boss, Armani Jeans, Longchamp and Polo Jeans Co Ralph Lauren, with whom Aelia has long-established partnerships.

 

“Innovative design, efficiency and glamour” – Aelia CEO

The collections are tailored to the passenger profile. For example, the Hugo Boss range includes BOSS Green, the new sports fashion sub-brand from the German fashion house.

Aelia Chairman and CEO Jean-Baptiste Morin stated: “We are delighted to be working with AENA and to be opening this fashion store, our first at a Spanish airport, in collaboration with our local sister company, SGEL. Together, we’ve created a store to match Malaga Airport’s vision to encompass innovative design, efficiency and glamour in its new terminal, and we have selected fashion brands that appeal to the mainly British and Spanish passengers, so that the store reflects our drive to create retail concepts that are specifically tailored to each location.

“This latest store opening positively reinforces the fact that landlords recognise the unique strengths that sister companies within the Lagardère Services group can harness in our shared approach, and it builds on the already well-established partnership between SGEL and Aelia in Spain. This new store, together with our duty free stores at cruise terminals in Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia, creates a strong foundation on which we are committed to growing our Spanish duty free and travel retail operations for the longer term.”

 

SGEL CEO Pedro Castaños commented: “With nearly a hundred years’ experience of retail in Spain, this new store is an exciting extension of our established fashion and travel retail expertise in the country. Working closely with our colleagues at Aelia, we are confident that the range of fashions specifically selected for the new store, will create a shopping experience to delight the Malaga Airport passenger. Certainly, our customers’ initial response is very positive.”

Your Fashion Store is operated by Aelia España – the joint venture between the duty free and luxury goods specialist, Aelia, and its sister company, SGEL, the operator of the Relay news and gifts chain, among other concepts, in airports and railway stations across Spain – both of which are subsidiaries of Lagardère Services.

Aelia España also operates shops in Spain at the cruise terminals of Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia, and will open a second airport fashion store at Alicante Airport’s new terminal in Spring 2011.

In Europe, Aelia operates fashion stores in France (over 20 dedicated mono-, duo- and multi-brand stores across a number of airports offering brands such as Hermès, Ralph Lauren, Hugo Boss, Yves Saint Laurent, Longchamp, Salvatore Ferragamo, Céline, Montblanc, Furla and Burberry) and in the UK (a mono-branded Longchamp store at London Heathrow Terminal 1).

In Asia Pacific, Lagardère Services, supported by Aelia, has won fashion outlet contracts for three stores to open at Changi Airport, and operates a multi-brand fashion store at Sydney Airport, which began trading in 2009.

 

About Aelia and SGEL

Aelia and SGEL are sister companies within the Lagardère Services Group. The group operates nearly 4,000 travel retail stores worldwide, including a presence at over 100 airports, and is the channel’s leading news and gifts retailer.

Aelia, the group’s duty free and luxury goods specialist, operates over 160 stores at 23 airports, including Paris Charles de Gaulle, Nice Côte d’Azur, London Luton, Prague Ruzyne and Warsaw Frédéric Chopin. The group also operates sales onboard airlines through subsidiary Aeroboutique Inflight Retail (Air France and Iberia), at port stores in Spain (Barcelona, Valencia and Palma de Mallorca) and at the Eurotunnel and Eurostar terminals on the French mainland.

SGEL has nearly 100 years’ experience of operating in Spain and has over 100 Relay news and gift shops, as well as 70 stores operating under other concepts such as La Cure Gourmande, in airports and railway stations, commercial centres and downtown across Spain.

The Lagardère Services Group’s travel retail expertise covers 20 countries across four continents. The group includes HDS Retail North America, Lagardère Services Asia Pacific plus several other local subsidiaries across Europe.