Teen-Only MAC Stores are Coming to a Mall Near You

Is MAC not every teenage girl's favorite makeup brand? It was certainly mine (and also Lorde's!). Good news for youngsters who are big fans of the company — MAC cosmetics is opening teen-specific retail locations so you can shop those Viva Glam collections without interference from pesky adults.

According to WWD, MAC's first youth store opened in Orlando with an emphasis on interactivity. Customers are encouraged to test out products, which are displayed in a less organized fashion than you would typically see at one of the company's other stores. A giant C-shaped table allows "360-degree access" to items from the full spectrum of MAC offerings. It sounds more like a 16-year-old girl's disorganized vanity than a a high-concept retail store for one of the biggest cosmetic brands around. But that's kind of the point.

"This customer likes to come in and hang out and play. We want them to spend some time with us,” Karen Buglisi Walker, global brand president of MAC, told WWD. The teen-centric shops are the first in a line of several new retail concepts the brand will unleash in the coming months, including something called a "fashion authority template" (IS THAT ME????) and national and global flagships.

"One store doesn’t fit all," Buglisi Walker told WWD. "A few years ago, that’s what we did. There might be a big store or a small store, but how we approached it was pretty much the same. Now, we understand our customer street by street, market by market. You have to be in the world of customization and relevancy now.”

Today's young consumers are incredibly savvy and are far less drawn in by typical store concepts and advertising methods. They are looking for interactive experiences and ways to engage with brands on social media. Brands like MAC who are poised to grow and change with customer interests are likely to do well as time goes on.

The youths — they're just so hard to please. Or maybe not... the Orlando teen-focused location is already one of MAC's top five best-performing stores in all of North America. Next the Teen Revolution heads to New York's Union Square (because where else?), where MAC will open up a 930-square-foot location in December. We all know the age-old adage: if you build it in Union Square, the Millennials will come.

Images: maccosmetics/Instagram(2)