Korea's largest beauty and lifestyle retailer opened a 2,694 square foot experiential store at Westfield Century City on June 13, its second U.S. location in roughly a month.
On June 13, OLIVE YOUNG opened 2,694 square feet at Westfield Century City. The Korean retailer's second U.S. store in roughly a month follows a Pasadena debut the company describes as a "successful debut." The Century City floor runs on skin diagnostics, a BOOST & GLOW BAR, a PREP BAR, and a dedicated section for at-home beauty devices, an experiential spine that has little in common with the way U.S. consumers usually buy lipstick.
The question this opening asks is not whether the brands on the shelves are good. It is whether a discovery-led, service-heavy Korean drugstore can clear U.S. mall rent when the local benchmark is Sephora and Ulta. OLIVE YOUNG is, by the company's own description, "Korea's leading beauty and lifestyle retailer," a category that does not have a direct U.S. analog. The format leans on curation, in-store analysis, and a wall of SKUs that often do not exist on U.S. e-commerce. The bet is that a slice of American shoppers will trade the algorithmic convenience of Amazon for a guided, hands-on browse.
The store mixes skincare, derma care, makeup, beauty tools, and wellness, the same five-pillar pitch the company has used at home, with merchandising built around a "discovery-focused retail experience" the press release describes as a curated mix of Korean brands, emerging products, and interactive moments. Grand-opening activations included a limited-time collaboration with Chamberlain Coffee, a small but deliberate gesture aimed at pulling foot traffic beyond the beauty press.
The Century City address is also a signal. Westfield Century City sits on the Westside of Los Angeles, in a mall whose tenant list already includes most of the brands OLIVE YOUNG would, in theory, compete with for the same discretionary beauty dollar. Putting store number two there, rather than in a denser Koreatown footprint or a downtown high-traffic block, is a read on who OLIVE YOUNG thinks its early U.S. customer is. The target appears to be a Westside shopper who already spends on premium skincare, and who is being asked to spend it on a Korean assortment instead.
The caveats are real. The press release offers no traffic, no sales, and no unit-economics math, and the Pasadena launch is dated only as "last month" relative to a June 15 release, so the rollout speed is the company's own characterization. The "successful debut" framing is also a company-issued phrase, not an audited figure. Limited-time collaborations like the Chamberlain Coffee activation are grand-opening marketing, not a structural claim about the format's durability.
What to watch next: whether OLIVE YOUNG opens a third U.S. store before the end of 2026, whether the Century City location repeats Pasadena's foot-traffic curve, and whether the experiential spine (skin scans, booster bars, devices) shows up in any disclosed U.S. revenue mix. So far, the only number on the table is the 2,694 square feet the company chose to put its name on.