Chief Brand Officer Michelle Goad is making big changes at Claire’s.

Among the first changes was a new brand color. The accessories retail swapped its well-known vibrant purple for a feminine lavender shade.

“Purple will always be part of Claire’s DNA, but the hue had to get a glow up,” Goad said.

Goad has had her eyes on Claire’s for years as a brand to join to turnaround, and timing aligned in January 2026. The mall-based retailer filed for bankruptcy for the second time in August 2025 and investment firm Ames Watson acquired Claire’s in September 2025 for $140 million. Goad previously was chief digital officer at Athleta, plus held leadership roles at Alo Yoga and Nike.

Claire’s Focuses on Elevating The Store

Currently, consumers can not purchase on Claires.com, but Goad aims to relaunch ecommerce down the line. The primary focus now for Claire’s is to elevate the experience at its 900 stores.

“We have to be really obsessively focused about rebuilding the foundation of the business and brand, and the stores are the heartbeat of that,” she said.

The brand has remerchandised the stores, with sections focusing on trending products, like squishy fidget toys, and licenses products. It also has a separate section for products geared toward younger girls — roughly age 6 and younger — instead of having those items scattered throughout the store.

Piercing also is a core store experience and a major part of Claire’s business.

“I have yet to get on calls with people who don’t have Claire’s experiences, and really what they mean is they were pierced at Claire’s,” Goad said. “That’s just part of the DNA of the business and brand. It’s the most exciting part to transform, to modernize what that needs to be for Gen Alpha, so that for generations to come she has the same stories to tell.”

The brand plans to evolve and invest in the piercing experience and it will be noticeable, Goad said. She also said that brand is “listening and taking action” about negative piercing headlines.

“It’s not going to be the same experience that maybe millennial moms had when they were growing up through this transformation,” she said.

Claire’s and ASMR and A ‘girl’ SMR

In select markets, Claire also has an Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response store activation, in which Claire’s has a studio in the store with microphones where girls can come in and film their own ASMR videos. The feedback has been positive, she said. Claire’s hopes to have more store investment down the line, but Goad declined to reveal more details.

ASMR is also at the center of its summer campaign, A Girl SMR at Claire’s, pronounced “A Girl Summer.”

“That just nods to the type of content we see tween girls and teens get excited about watching,” Goad said. “It’s native to social platforms, so it’s something that she’s probably seen on YouTube, TikTok, et cetera. And we’re playing that back to her in an only-at-Claire’s way.”

Claire’s Targets Tweens

Broadly, the Claire’s target market is Gen Alpha girls, which is girls ages 3-16. Historically, the brand has focused on girls ages 6 to 8.

Now, the brand is focusing older than that, on the tween market before the teenage years, Goad said. With the introduction of artificial intelligence, Gen Alpha girls are getting their information much faster than ever before. As a result, their preferences age up faster than previously what young girls were looking for, Goad said.

“You see this shift in once she moves past this sort of 6- to 8-year-old range, she really starts shopping in much more adult-oriented brands or even teen-oriented brands because that’s what she’s seeing on social media,” Goad said. “For us, in order to expand our market share and grow, we needed to shift to meet her where she was and her interests.”

Claire’s conducted social listening and surveyed its own employees, friends and friends of friends network, to better understand the Gen Alpha market and to update its branding accordingly. What it found was that Gen Alpha girls are learning more into femininity, a softer color palate and more matching aesthetic, Goad said. This is a departure from Gen Z shoppers, who were looking more to be different and have an edgy look.

“They love aesthetics and beautiful visually cohesive aesthetics,” she said. “It’s an important part of the new brand codes for us to get that right for her.”

On Trend, On Time

Another pillar to its marketing creative and brand is ensuring everything is “shareworthy.” For example, the retailer leaned into squishy, fidget-type products, such as NeeDoh and Taba Squishies. It’s important for girls to have them and then share that they have them on social media, she said.

While this is not part of Claire’s core product offering of jewelry, these products appeal to the brand’s audience. The marketing campaign has jewelry in it, but it wasn’t the focus, Goad said.

“Having a broader assortment of things like that has just helped accelerate our path back to growth,” Goad said.

Shoppers are coming in and asking for these products, which is proof that this strategy is working, Goad said. She calls it being “on trend, on time.”

“There’s a viral product that’s a butter squishy, and it was in our store windows and in our campaign and we obviously executed the campaign,” she said. “Consumers were coming in explicitly asking for that because we had put it in the window. That isn’t as common for Claire’s in the past to actually have something in a window and then someone’s coming into the store and wanting to buy that exact item.”

Transforming to a ‘Social-First’ Brand

Claire’s also is working to become a “social-first” brand. Previously, Claire’s focused its marketing content on Instagram and TikTok, and now it is broadening its scope. Claire’s is distributing its content on YouTube and youth-oriented social media platform Coverstar, as that’s where its target audience is spending time, she said. The brand also is focusing on user generated content.

Claire’s had dozens of influencers that are helping tell its story. This helps Claire’s ensure its content is getting to its target, as the brand knows which accounts its audience follows.

For the brand’s summer campaign, Claire’s is tapping lifestyle influencers that it knows its consumers follow to post ASMR content. This allows the content to resonate and be more inclusive compared with using ASMR-focused influencers, Goad said.

Changing the Brand Perception

While Claire’s has high brand awareness, the focus is on changing its brand perception on what shoppers can expect to find in a Claire’s store (a broader assortment for a tween audience) and a positive piercing experience, Goad said.

The brand updated its mission to, “create an inspiring playground for modern girlhood.” This statement allows Claire’s to have more flexibility about what that playground is, such as the bedroom floor where she can swap squishies or the bathroom counter where she gets ready, Goad said.

“We just have such a dedicated commitment to building a two-way conversation with Gen Alpha,” Goad said. “While she’s hard to reach, our No. 1 priority is to put all these decisions in front of her and have her decide along with us vs. telling her what to do.”