Cult Gaia is gearing up for a Euro summer. The brand’s first pop-up of the season opened this week in Cannes, while in St. Tropez, a follow-on from its successful run in the Riviera town last summer is soon to open its doors, just before the brand heads to Ibiza’s Jondal beach club. It’s all part of founder Jasmin Larian Hekmat’s plan to build out the Cult Gaia universe.

The brand is fresh from a milestone year. Cult Gaia finished fiscal 2025 with $100 million in revenues, versus $75 million the year prior, a sharp uptick that the founder credits to sticking to her guns for the past 14 years.

When the brand launched in Los Angeles in 2012, Hekmat says that those around her had strong feelings about how she should approach the design and building of her brand. “I was told along the journey that I need core, core, core; commercial, commercial, commercial; wholesale, wholesale, wholesale,” she says. Instead, Hekmat leaned into bolder statement pieces, such as feathered dresses ($2,000), sculptural tops ($500), and the bulky bamboo Ark bag ($200) that helped land the brand on the map. She also limited the brand’s wholesale exposure in favor of direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales, which has paid off in the wake of multi-brand woes. (Cult Gaia’s channel mix is currently 70% DTC, versus 30% wholesale, including stockists such as Net-a-Porter, Revolve, and Bergdorf Goodman.)

Cult Gaia’s seven own stores are currently concentrated in the US — from New York to LA to Miami — plus its four seasonal outposts. But Hekmat is intent on building out its physical presence globally, and believes that opening stores, rather than relying on online sales and wholesale stockists, is the only way she can control the experience. “I get to do the interiors and the music and the architecture, and really create a feeling that is beyond just objects,” she says. “Our days are so monotonous. So if you can go into a Cult Gaia store and experience some novelty and a dopamine hit, we’re doing what we’re meant to do.”

Now, the founder is doubling down on her approach, with plans to more than double the brand’s existing stores in the next two to three years, build out its recently launched men’s category, and invest in future shows off the back of its Fall/Winter 2026 New York runway debut.

The build out

Ten to 15 stores by 2029 may be a big push for a brand that opened its first physical space just three years ago, in LA in 2023, but many have been in the works for some time now. It takes a while to get the details right, Hekmat says. “The most important part is signing a good deal that will protect the business in the long term,” she says, meaning a deal that offers the brand a high-visibility location, neighbors that align with its positioning, and, of course, a fair price. “The biggest risk is also the biggest reward, which is obviously that we can attract new customers and bring them into our space, but it can become heavy on the P&L [profit and loss] if you’re not signing good deals.”

In April, the brand opened a pop-up in London’s Harrods, and alongside Cannes and St. Tropez this month, Cult Gaia’s East Hampton seasonal store is also reopening. The rest of 2026 will see the unveiling of permanent spaces in California’s South Coast Plaza, Ibiza, New York’s Madison Avenue, as well as the Dubai Mall (UAE) and Knox Street (Dallas, Texas). In 2027, the brand will head to Wynn Al Marjan Island (UAE).

Cult Gaia may be on a store opening tear, but it’s a carefully planned one. Each new location is determined by the purchasing traffic the team is witnessing on the backend, as well as the information gathered by store associates about Cult Gaia customers across its existing stores. “So much of retail is built on high-intent purchasing,” Hekmat says. “It’s like, ‘I have an event tonight,’ or ‘I’m traveling.’ So we find out where they’re traveling to.”

The brand will then pop up in popular cities and towns, like the South of France or Spain, often through a standalone seasonal boutique — but Hekmat is also open to hospitality tie-ups, as is the case with Jondal beach club in Ibiza this summer. And if it does well, the brand will go on to explore a more permanent space. “I don’t assume we’re going to be right about anything, even if all the data shows us so,” she explains. “I also like waiting for the best space ever, so that allows me to bide my time, but also grow.” Hekmat is especially keen on corner locations that let lots of light in; it was the selling point for the New York boutique (the brand’s second opening).

Though they’re a good testing ground, these temporary stores are a lot of work, and have a high bar for success. In St. Tropez, this summer’s seasonal store is Cult Gaia’s fourth. They are built out like any other Cult Gaia location, from the furniture Hekmat selects (Cannes features big, silver Walter Leeman Zeppelin armchairs from the seventies, which often sell for $20,000-plus) to the finishing of the railings and the shelves. “It’s psychotic, because I have to do a build out every year, but it needs to be the right space, especially in places like that [where] it’s seasonal,” Hekmat says. “So you only have a few months to make it, or you’re dead [in that location].”

Bringing men’s into the mix

Physical stores aren’t the only avenue through which Cult Gaia is expanding its brand world. This past season, Hekmat debuted menswear for the first time, during her first official New York Fashion Week outing.

The designer is used to fielding questions from her customers’ partners — many of whom have spent plenty of time on the “boyfriend couch” in stores — about when she’ll bring them into the product mix. “Now, when men come into the store, they can sit and chill, but they can also browse,” she says. The men’s offering, which ranges from structured blazers to boxy, textured shirts, is still small in comparison to women’s, and is available in all stores, mixed in with the women’s product.

It’s not just about bringing in the husbands and boyfriends, however. The men’s launch has inadvertently helped Cult Gaia expand its female customer base, Hekmat says, as well as the volume of products existing customers are purchasing. “So much of our womenswear is bodycon and sexy,” Hekmat says. “But the customer has this alternate identity of wanting to wear things that are a little oversized, bigger, easier — and she’s buying men’s for it.”

For Hekmat, the February show was a clear way to demonstrate the growth of Cult Gaia’s offering. She likens the show to a store opening, and says that choosing the soundtrack and location was just as important as the clothes themselves. “I’m giving people something beyond the experience of purchasing something they love,” she says of the overlap. It all feeds into Hekmat’s larger goal of building out the Cult Gaia universe, a play she’s been keen on since the brand’s early days and has been able to increasingly work toward with more revenue under her belt. In 2024, the brand launched fragrances, an early effort in building Cult Gaia’s resonance beyond women’s clothes and accessories. Offering a wider closet (via men’s) and establishing the brand’s approach to capital F fashion (via a runway) is another extension of this.

But Hekmat is firm that her keen focus on world-building will not put the quality of the product at risk. “Without [good product], you can do world-building, you can have shows, you can have stores, and also have nothing,” she says. While she’s looking outward to find spaces to introduce to the Cult Gaia world, she’s also zeroning in on the quality and fit of her pieces. She also hints that there are more categories to come, but won’t give away specifics just yet.

Come September, Hekmat will be back on the NYFW schedule, with Cult Gaia’s SS27 collection, plus seven more stores under her belt and counting.

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