Luxury makeup store coming to J.C. Penney

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Staff photo by Raul R. Rubiera
Roxanne McLaurin is the owner of Off the Top of My Head, a new hat shop on Hay Street downtown.

Today’s top two tidbits are going to affect chic shoppers primarily from the neck up.

A fun new hat shop is headed for Hay Street.

And — in major news in the world of makeup — Sephora will be opening one of its “stores within stores” inside Cross Creek Mall’s J.C. Penney this fall.

Let’s start with Sephora.

Sephora is a cosmetics division of the luxury products group Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. J.C. Penney announced in 2006 that it would start opening Sephora stores inside its walls.

Much was written at the time about how this was an effort by J.C. Penney to entice younger female customers into its stores.

Of course, J.C. Penney spokeswoman Ann Marie Bishop told me via e-mail this week that: “Sephoras inside JCPenney appeal to a wide age range, various ethnic backgrounds, and across a span of geographies.”

Anyway ...

Bishop said there are currently Sephora locations inside 105 of its more than 1,100 J.C. Penney stores. Plans call for adding another 50 this year.

They carry brands including cult makeup lines such as Bare Escentuals, Stila and Smashbox; skincare lines such as Peter Thomas Roth, Korres, Cosmedicine and Philosophy; and fragrance offerings from Dior, DKNY, Aquolina and Sean John, according to Bishop.

And, of course, Sephora has its own collection of makeup, skincare, etc.

Construction of the Sephora on the first floor of J.C. Penney will begin this summer and be finished by early October, said Jeff Gauker, manager of Fayetteville’s J.C. Penney, who is quite excited about the activity this will generate in his store.

There’s a Sephora inside Burlington’s not quite two-year-old J.C. Penney.

But that’s been it so far for North Carolina, Gauker said.

There are, of course, stand-alone Sephora store at malls such as Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh and the Streets at Southpoint in Durham.

All of this is happening at the same time that J.C. Penney is running those “We’re stepping up our style” commercials that have seemed inescapable lately.

The chain has been heavily promoting some of its newer lines, such as Fabulosity by Kimora Lee Simmons, ALLEN B. by Allen Schwartz and I “Heart” Ronson by designer Charlotte Ronson.
Hats on

OK, now back to the hats.

Roxanne McLaurin is gearing up to open Off the Top of My Head at 103 Hay St.

This is a lady who can wear a hat and loves to do just that.

She has for years.

But McLaurin said she’s always had trouble finding ones that she likes.

“That’s why I said ‘If I can’t find them, there must be other people like me,’
” she said.

McLaurin has long been wanting to open a little hat shop. Yet the right place never presented itself until she saw narrow space right near the Market House with interior brick walls and a little ledge perfect for hats.

The front of the shop will be for the ladies — with a private section where women can try on hats and get suggestions from McLaurin if requested.

The back room will be for the men who will be fitted for cowboy hats, fedoras and the like.

McLaurin said Off the Top of My head will carry a wide range of brands, styles and prices.

She had some of her inventory in the day I popped by. But more shipments were on the way — including one from Juicy Couture, which makes an eclectic collection in everything from canvas to raffia.

McLaurin doesn’t want to open the door until her selection is up to her standards. That might mean early April but maybe not before April 4.

Too bad.

That’s the day of the Stoneybrook Steeplechase in Hoke County. And Off the Top of My Head would be the perfect place to shop for that hat-tastic event.
Follow the frosting

Time to check in on the game of musical jewelers.

As you’ll recall, Whitehall and Lundstrom jewelers closed in Cross Creek mall’s center court late last year.

Harris Jewelers is hanging out in one of those two spots for the moment while Harris does some remodeling on its regular space near Sears — a spot that it should be back in by June, the mall’s manager Matt Holligan said in an e-mail.

Later this summer, Helzberg Diamonds will be moving into the mall’s center court, according to Holligan.

That will make two new jewelers in a relatively short period of time seeing how Kay Jewelers is on track for a late April opening down by the food court.

By the by, Holligan said construction is slated to start soon on a permanent location for Chocolate Covered, which is going next to Kay. And Forever 21 is plugging right along with the hope of opening before — but no later than — June 1, according to Holligan.
Out and about

Here’s a little something for region readers.

A Row of Purls Too will open Wednesday at 1015 S. Madison St. in Whiteville.

Barbara Blackmon, will be running the show at that location.

Her daughter, Sheri Houghton, will continue running a Row of Purls in Stedman.

In addition to carrying speciality yarns and knitting supplies, Blackmon plans on offering a variety of classes at the Whiteville location — including looming, for which she said there’s lately been much demand.

Speaking of classes, Soo Chic Boutique in Elizabethtown will be offering some classes now that the business has moved to a bigger spot at 214 W. Broad St.

“If you’re in Fayetteville you’ve got classes at Michael’s and AC Moore and all that. But we don’t really have anything like that here,” said Melissa Singletary, one of Soo Chic Boutique’s owners.

Some of the crafters who consign things at the boutique, which celebrated its grand opening in the new spot last week, will be running the classes.
Vroom

I’ve lately devoted so much ink to the rapidly expanding O’Reilly Auto Parts that I’m determined to handle this week’s status check in one sentence. Ready?

O’Reilly’s Yadkin Road store opened its doors last weekend, two months after O’Reilly opened in Lumberton, meaning that the next O’Reilly out of the gate will be the one under construction on Raeford Road in Fayetteville followed by a second Robeson County location in Pembroke.
P.S.

Aeropostale announced this month that it will be launching a new concept — a chain of stores that may appeal to little brothers and sisters of those who already frequent Aeropostale.

The new concept will be called P.S. by Aero and will focus on clothing elementary school age children, said the company’s CEO Julian Geigerd during an analyst conference call.

Granted, this doesn’t mean much for the Fayetteville area shopper at present. Aeropostale is clustering its initial grouping of P.S. stores around metropolitan New York, Geigerd said.

But company officials told analysts that there may be potential to grow rather quickly. I could quite easily see myself revisiting this subject a few years from now.
Then again ...

It’s been five years since I said in this very column that I could envision myself writing about BJ’s Wholesale Club in the future.

In 2004, I’d heard some serious rumblings about BJ’s digging around Fayetteville for potential digs. (BJ’s never confirmed said rumblings.)

But seeing how it’s now 2009 and we’re still BJ’s-less, if the wholesale club’s real estate scouts were shopping around Fayetteville back then, they were apparently just browsing.

If they’ve been snooping around lately, the local developers aren’t telling me.

During a BJ’s analyst conference call this month, company officials said they are picking up their expansion pace with plans to open seven clubs in 2009 compared with four clubs last year.

One of those is a relocation. And there are three clubs (in Florida, New Jersey and New York) listed as “opening soon” on BJ’s Web site.

So that leaves three, which means odds aren’t great that Fayetteville would be one of those. But who knows? Apparently not me.