Lands’ End is coming home for the holidays this year with an immersive pop-up in Chicago, the city where the Wisconsin-based lifestyle retailer was founded in 1963. The Holiday Tree Farm by Lands’ End is inspired by a line of archival copy that said that the retailer of apparel, outerwear and home furnishings provided “everything but the tree” at Christmastime.
“I just loved what that evoked, as far as being able to sum up how Lands’ End can help you for your holidays, because we literally have something for everybody… I feel like that really embodied what we were trying to accomplish,” CMO Sarah Sylvester said. “Lands’ End has done events in the past for holiday — how can you not? — but we really wanted to make sure that we were challenging everyone to think outside of the box.”
The holiday effort arrives as Lands’ End continues its turnaround efforts. The retailer and brand management firm WHP Global in April completed the creation of a joint venture that is intended to help those efforts. Lands’ End saw net revenue increase 2.7% year over year in Q2 2026 and made moves on marketing spend, customer acquisition and inventory that executives believe will better position it for the back half of the year.
The Holiday Tree Farm, open Nov. 6-8, will feature a variety of seasonally themed experiences, including a tote bag customization station, a vintage photo booth and a cozy lounge. The pop-up’s stations connect with the retailer’s key seasonal product categories — like outerwear and pajamas — so that the experience remains grounded in the brand.
The activation also includes a Holiday Drink Lodge in partnership with coffee chain La Colombe and a Sweater Swap in partnership with resale platform ThredUp that allows guests to exchange a used sweater for a new one.
Lands’ End’s prior collaborations with convenience store chain Wawa and lifestyle brand T&T Twin Talk were cited on a recent earnings call as marketing highlights that helped drive social media traffic and retail sales. But brand collaborations need more than just shared marketer interest, according to Sylvester.
“Even if you have really great brand names, if it doesn't make sense in some way, shape, or form with audience overlap or shared intent, it's hard to make it work,” the executive said. “We want to always ground it back to key product categories, either for us or them… how do you cut through the noise and do something that's fun and disruptive?”
Beyond other brands, Lands’ End is also partnering with Chicago native Lindi Presta and her Running the Runway run club for a “Miles & Monograms” activation and hosting a book reading and signing with local children’s author Lori Orlinsky. The goal of collaborating with such influencers is to help Lands’ End foster stronger local ties and extend the experience beyond Chicago.
“With these types of events, yes, you want to get broad awareness and great social content… even if you can't physically be at the pop-up in Chicago, you can still see and appreciate the content and enjoy it,” Sylvester said. “But specifically with Chicago, I love the localization aspect and how we're really trying to connect with the community.”
Experiential and always-on marketing
Lands’ End’s holiday pop-up arrives at a moment when marketers are reembracing experiential marketing after pandemic disruptions and amid a pendulum swing away from pay-to-play performance marketing toward IRL brand building. The retailer earlier this year teamed with Graduate by Hilton for a “Tote Tailgate Tour” that featured onsite experiences at three college towns.
“I started my career in experiential, so it holds a soft spot in my heart,” Sylvester said. “More than ever, people are craving things in real life and real experiences that they can participate in… There's just something nostalgic and comforting about when you can put down your phone and interact in real life. I think events and experiences are more important than ever.”
For Sylvester, who was appointed in March as Lands’ End’s first chief marketing officer in nearly a decade, experiential is a part of the brand’s always-on marketing — not just an opportunity for a few social posts and possibly PR-driven articles. That approach comes as some marketers are using experiential to help meet other needs around content creation and discoverability in the age of artificial intelligence.
“Experiences cost more than just paying for another paid social ad — how do we make that investment go as far as possible? Yes, it's about, hopefully, the thousands of people that will physically come through and interact with us, but also about creating content for holiday that we can use all season long,” the executive said.
In an increasingly fragmented consumer environment, uniting all aspects of the marketing mix — paid media, paid social, search, influencers, brand collaborations and experiences — around one core brand story is crucial, Sylvester explained.
“I feel like you need these three or four big moments a year of really being clear about who you are and what you stand for,” she said. “In marketing, you’ve got to do a little bit of all of it. It's always an ‘and.’”
