A California-based clothing brand known for sustainability has planted its first Alabama flag at The Summit in Birmingham, bringing with it a 1,430-square-foot store built around digital dressing rooms, touchscreens and QR codes instead of racks you have to dig through yourself. Reformation's new boutique sits on the mall's upper level, tucked between Free People and Madewell.
According to bizjournals.com, the store runs on Reformation's Retail X platform, a system that lets shoppers browse the brand's online inventory and build digital dressing rooms right on the sales floor while trying on pieces. The idea, per the retailer's own framing, is to replicate the ease of online shopping inside a physical space — customers work with a store associate, and only one of each item sits out on the floor, with touchscreens and QR codes doing the rest of the heavy lifting. As AL.com reports, Reformation offers limited-edition collections alongside jeans, sweaters, dresses, shoes and accessories, and the company now operates stores in 25 states.
The dressing rooms themselves include touchscreens that let customers request a different size or style without hunting down an employee or leaving the room. It's the same setup Reformation rolled out earlier this year at its first Raleigh store at North Hills, where, as newsobserver.com reported, shoppers could build a dressing room digitally using touchscreens and QR codes throughout that store. That North Carolina location — Reformation's second in the state after a Charlotte SouthPark store that opened in 2025 — stocked dresses, separates, denim, outerwear, shoes and bags.
Sustainability Built Into the Fixtures
The Birmingham store leans into Reformation's sustainability branding in its physical design, not just its tech. The space features green building infrastructure meant to minimize waste, water and energy use, along with vintage furnishings, Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood hangers and reusable deadstock totes. The newsobserver.com report on the Raleigh opening described a nearly identical setup, noting that vintage furnishings and FSC-certified wooden hangers were used throughout that store as well.
Founded in 2009, Reformation has built its identity around sustainable manufacturing, and the company has the numbers to back up at least some of that reputation. A factory-tour report from trellis.net found that 97% of the company's materials in 2023 were recycled, regenerative or renewable, with synthetic fibers making up just 2.5% of materials and a company goal of eliminating them entirely by 2030. Reformation has also set 2030 targets to cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% and Scope 3 emissions by 48% from a 2021 baseline, per the same report.
A Fast-Growing Brand Picks Its Entry Point
The Birmingham opening lands as Reformation is expanding aggressively nationwide. The retailer operated 70 stores at the end of its second quarter and has a path to double that fleet within five years, according to retaildive.com, with 15 to 16 new stores expected to open in 2026 alone. The outlet also reported that second-quarter net revenue rose roughly 24% year over year to $155.2 million, and Reformation expects full-year net revenue to land between $602 million and $606 million. Bhamnow.com noted that Reformation already has nearby locations in Atlanta and Nashville, making Birmingham a natural next step for the brand's Southeastern push.
The Summit itself just changed hands. Maryland-based Federal Realty Investment Trust announced last week that it had acquired the property for $508 million, or $498 million on a net basis, according to a company release distributed via prnewswire.com. The release describes The Summit as a 100-acre, roughly 870,000-square-foot open-air property that draws nearly 9 million visits a year, making it the most-visited retail destination in Alabama. More than 110 tenants operate there, including Apple, Trader Joe's, RH, Nordstrom Rack, Alo Yoga, Sephora and North Italia — and more than 30 of them have no other Alabama location.
Federal Realty's announcement specifically pointed to Reformation's arrival, alongside recent commitments from Aritzia and LoveShackFancy, as evidence that The Summit has become the entry point for retailers expanding into Alabama. An AL.com report on the ownership change separately noted that Reformation opened at The Summit in July, a detail that differs from the bizjournals.com report describing the opening as having happened this past week.
