Gisou Ready to Take London With Piccadilly Pop-up
LONDON — Gisou is opening its first holiday pop-up in the British capital and is decking the halls of Piccadilly with its honey-packed products.
The pop-up, located inside a town house at 189 Piccadilly, across from the Royal Academy of Arts, will open on Thursday and run until Dec. 18. The store will remain open on Gisou.com until Dec. 23.
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The brand’s founders, Negin Mirsalehi and Maurits Stibbe, have also created a short film set around Piccadilly Circus in London.
It shows the couple, who recently became parents, dashing around town looking for their dog, Mosey, who has run away from home because the new baby is stealing all the attention.
“We have always wanted to do a pop-up in London. There is a magical vibe here at Christmas,” said Mirsalehi, who has created temporary holiday shops (and accompanying films) in Paris and Amsterdam.
The U.K. is also one of Gisou’s fastest-growing markets. Stibbe said the honey-based hair and beauty brand has been growing 300 percent year-over-year, and resonating with London’s affluent customers.
“It’s a very engaged market,” he said, adding that Gisou has become one of the top three hair care brands at Selfridges, and at Sephora in Europe.
The pop-up will stock all of Gisou’s hair and skin care products in addition to limited-edition gifts and sets. The brand will also be selling its first Gisou Advent Calendar.
The London store will be done around a “golden glow” theme, and it will remain open longer than past pop-up stores.
The London pop-up caps a big year for the brand, which is bound to the Mirsaheli family’s beekeeping heritage, and which uses sustainably sourced ingredients from the family’s bee garden.
Earlier this year Gisou closed a series B funding round led by Eurazeo, which took a minority stake in the business.
Eurazeo took a share alongside Vaultier7, an existing minority investor, and Mirsalehi and Stibbe. The pair, who cofounded Gisou in 2015, remain its majority owners and continue to run the company.
The couple have been using the new financial backing to support Gisou’s growth plans, reinforce its digital and e-commerce capabilities, strengthen the brand and its community, and expand globally, including developing the team in North America.
Gisou has experienced rapid growth since early 2020, when Vaultier7 made a multimillion-dollar minority investment in the hair care start-up, which began as a direct-to-consumer operation. That came one month before COVID-19 began sweeping through Europe.
The next year is set to be just as busy with Gisou planning to add its lip oil and hair oil — currently bestsellers on the brand’s website — to the shelves at Sephora. Right now, the retailer only stocks the hair products.
Stibbe said the brand will continue to release new products and innovations in hair as it builds its skin care category with more honey-based formulations.
