US activewear brand Fabletics opened its largest European store at Berlin’s KaDeWe on June 11. The 160 sq m flagship is built around the same logic that drove the brand past $1bn in 2025: get people through the door, convert them to paid VIP members, and capture data that outlasts the visit.
When Fabletics cut the ribbon at Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) on June 11, it was making an argument about what kind of brand it is. The 160-square-metre space on the department store’s fourth floor sits a few metres from Skims, placing Fabletics inside one of the continent’s most selective luxury retail environments. It is the label’s largest retail footprint in continental Europe — and its most ambitious.
Germany anchors the European expansion
In Germany, Fabletics distributes through retailers including Peek & Cloppenburg and SportScheck, using shop-in-shop formats to scale presence without relying exclusively on standalone stores.
Berlin’s shop-in-shops function as a dense access market: a way to be visible in a multicentric city, positioned across high-traffic retail locations including Tauentzienstraße, Leipziger Platz, Gropius Passagen, Spandau Arcaden and Eastgate.
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The Berlin store carries the full women’s and men’s range – bras, leggings, shorts and functional workout apparel alongside lifestyle pieces, priced between €20 and €150 – plus selected items from active collaborations, including pieces from Khloé Kardashian’s collection. Its physical design is built around a format Fabletics calls ”Generation 5”: two oversized digital screens anchor the space and function as a live content channel, running campaign footage and product stories. The screens are how the store maintains continuity with the experience members already know online from the digital-first brand.
A wellness extension is planned for later this summer: a Lagree Pilates studio by Shapesty and a recovery and longevity offering from Recovery Society will sit directly adjacent to the retail floor.
The store as a membership acquisition machine
For Fabletics, physical retail functions as a recruitment tool. The company’s operating model centers on a paid VIP membership program with a $69.95 monthly fee, which offers access to exclusive products and daily discounts of 20 to 50 percent.
Paid members generate roughly 95 percent of total revenue.
The store is where new members are made: Fabletics president Meera Bhatia has said that around half of all in-store visitors sign up for the program. Store associates use AI-assisted scripts tailored to different stages of the customer conversation, and the technology extends to recognition: when a known member enters a location, the system surfaces their online purchase history and enables tailored product recommendations on the floor. Bhatia reports a fourfold revenue difference between omnichannel shoppers and those who engage through a single channel only.
The commercial context behind that figure: Fabletics crossed $1 billion in annual revenue in 2025, growing 18 percent year-over-year, and now counts 2.7 million paid VIP members, out of a total active customer base of more than 3 million. Nearly half of all VIP members have held the subscription for more than two years.
40 new stores in 2026, half outside the US
The KaDeWe opening marks the start of an acceleration. Fabletics ended 2025 with 120 stores globally — 114 in the United States — and has announced plans to open roughly 40 more in 2026.
Europe, the Middle East and the APAC region are the stated focus. In Europe, the brand has indicated plans for up to 20 additional dedicated spaces, with Italy and Eastern Europe named as targets, alongside a first permanent UK store that it has been signaling since a 14-month Regent Street pop-up. A partnership with GMG will support entry into the UAE later this year.
The European push comes against a crowded activewear market that includes Lululemon, Vuori, Alo Yoga and established European multi-brand retailers, all competing for the same fitness-adjacent consumer. What distinguishes Fabletics’ entry strategy from a conventional store rollout is its use of membership data to pre-identify viable markets: in the US, new store locations are partly determined by the density of existing VIP members in a given area.
