The Webster brings discovery to Fontainebleau’s 90,000-square-foot retail offer, with its Stéphane Parmentier-designed space presenting luxury fashion more like a beautifully curated private wardrobe than a traditional department store.
Fontainbleau
There will be an extraordinary amount of money moving through Las Vegas when Formula One returns to the Strip this November.
Across its first three races, the Las Vegas Grand Prix has generated $3.2 billion in economic impact for Southern Nevada. In 2024 alone, race week attracted 306,000 attendees and delivered an estimated $934 million to the local economy, with 175,000 visitors coming from outside Las Vegas and spending around $2,400 each during their stay which is good news for the Vegas economy.
It is precisely the kind of high-spending, international audience that Fontainebleau, now approaching its third anniversary, looks increasingly well positioned to capture.
The luxury resort has truly found its rhythm, fresh enough to still feel like a discovery, and sitting directly in the path of one of the most valuable luxury audiences to arrive in Las Vegas all year.
An Immersion in Luxury
Zimmermann is part of Fontainebleau’s tightly edited luxury mix, reflecting a move beyond the predictable Vegas roll call of global brands towards a fresher, more fashion-conscious retail offer.
Fontainebleau
The $3.7 billion premium destination is approaching its third anniversary this December, and inside its enormous 67-storey footprint sits 90,000 square feet of curated, luxury retail. In a city that has traditionally approached shopping with the same philosophy it applies to almost everything else – ‘make it bigger, make it spectacular and give people more’ Fontainebleau has made a surprisingly disciplined choice and edited a collection that is complementary, enjoyable and easy to shop.
And with another Formula One weekend approaching, bringing precisely the international, high-spending and well-travelled customer this property was designed to attract, that decision looks to be a winner.
There is Gucci and Bottega Veneta, certainly, but also Missoni and Zimmermann stores.
The Webster is perhaps the clearest expression of that thinking behind this vibrant retail collective.
Rather than install a conventional luxury department-store anchor, Fontainebleau chose a retailer built around ease and joyful discovery. Its Level 2 space, designed by French architect Stéphane Parmentier, uses pink onyx and intimate salons to create something closer to an extraordinary personal dressing room than a Vegas shopping mall.
Inside brand such as Loewe and Pucci can sit alongside Maison Margiela, Jacquemus and Courrège allowing the guest to co-ordinate their selects with ease.
Morris & Co. connects shopping directly to the property’s design heritage and all the boutiques contain architectural details particular to Fontainebleau, while some carry products unavailable elsewhere.
It feels fresh, and culturally richer than simply assembling another collection of famous names. And, perhaps most importantly, it gives people who can shop virtually anywhere in the world a reason to shop here.
A Formula One visitor spending thousands of dollars across a Las Vegas weekend is unlikely to be impressed simply because a resort has Gucci (which they probably passed a branch at their departure airport)
The opportunity lies in giving that customer something they didn’t already know they wanted.
Built for the Experience Economy
Formula One returns to Las Vegas from November 19–21, bringing one of the city’s most valuable international audiences back to the Strip—and a growing mix of fashion, beauty and luxury brands competing for their attention. (Photo by Hector Vivas/Getty Images)
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The business reality of resort retail is that having a captive audience doesn’t guarantee a shopping audience. Guests still have to choose to browse, and in Las Vegas particularly, retail is competing for their time and wallet with restaurants, casinos, shows, clubs and an almost relentless number of other distractions.
Under developers Jeffrey Soffer and Brett Mufson, Fontainebleau has challenged one of the more predictable conventions of resort retail: the idea that we gamble in one place, dine in another and make a deliberate trip elsewhere to shop. Restaurants including Washing Potato and the ultra-fine Cantonese offerings of the Chyna Club sit alongside the stores within an open promenade, where art and fashion fuse as part of the journey to lunch or dinner rather than housed in a separate shopping mall.
Miami Beach Origins
There is some history to this thinking. When architect Morris Lapidus designed the original Fontainebleau Miami Beach in the 1950s, he brought a distinctly European sense of glamour and theatre to American resort design, creating spaces intended not simply to be passed through, but to encourage guests to see, be seen and linger. There is a modern commercial logic to that legacy in Las Vegas.
Today’s luxury traveller is often cash rich but decidedly time poor, and doesn’t necessarily want to dedicate half a day to visiting a shopping mall. By putting fashion, food, art and hospitality into the same natural flow, Fontainebleau makes that customer’s time work considerably harder.
A Fresh Face For Las Vegas
The Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix returns from November 19 to 21, culminating in Saturday night’s race along the Strip. But the audience around Formula One is changing almost as quickly as the cars. The all-female F1 Academy will hold its 2026 season finale in Las Vegas, bringing 18 drivers to the grid and another generation of fans into the city.
Sephora has become its Official Beauty Retail Partner and sponsors Spanish rookie Natalia Granada, while its wider Formula One partnership puts Sephora Glam Bars into the Paddock Club at 18 Grands Prix this season. Beauty retail sitting alongside motorsport hospitality would have seemed an unlikely pairing not very long ago. In 2026, it makes considerable commercial sense.
It also tells us something about the changing customer profile arriving in Las Vegas. Formula One is no longer speaking only to the traditional male motorsport fan. Fashion, beauty, hospitality, entertainment and luxury are increasingly part of the commercial ecosystem surrounding the sport, while brands including Disney and LEGO are using F1 Academy to reach women, families and younger consumers.
And there is a longer game here. Formula One has now committed to Las Vegas through 2037, turning November’s influx of international visitors into a recurring part of the city’s commercial calendar rather than a short-lived experiment.
Las Vegas doesn’t need to become less Las Vegas. The spectacle, scale and wonderfully unapologetic excess are precisely why millions keep returning.
But after years of visiting the city for conventions, many of us have been craving destinations that recognise the visitor has changed too. A guest that wants to be surprised and delighted with discovery, better food, interesting fashion, strong design and somewhere worth spending the increasingly precious hours between everything else we’ve come here to do.
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