KaDeWe opens a 21,500-square-foot health hub on its fourth floor

Berlin's KaDeWe has opened a dedicated health, sports and wellness space on the fourth floor of its historic central building. At 21,500 square feet, the hub brings boutique fitness, recovery treatments and exclusive activewear brands together in the 120-year-old, historically protected department store.

The German retailer follows Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Selfridges in London and Saks Fifth Avenue, which opened its now-defunct The Wellery in 2017. Julie Gasperini, director of buying for KaDeWe group and a lead organiser of the hub's partners, discussed the project at a Thursday morning press preview.

The space includes a studio for Lagree classes run by Shapesty, the boutique Berlin brand whose high-intensity, low-impact workouts have built a celebrity following in Los Angeles through figures like Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson. The KaDeWe studio is Shapesty's third in Berlin.

Frankfurt-based Recover Society runs the biohacking and longevity side, in a space fitted with a hyperbaric oxygen therapy chamber, a low-lit room for breathing and movement classes, and individual consultation rooms. Doctors and other specialists are on site to guide clients towards suitable treatments.

Gasperini sketched the intended flow of the floor: a Lagree class in the morning, recovery and relaxation next door, brunch in the store's legendary sixth-floor food hall, then a beauty treatment on the third. "One experience, in one place, under one roof," she said.

Recover Society chief executive Nicolai Gropper told WWD the company began in hotels, and that has worked well. "But now many department stores want to create more space for customer experiences and that's how we fit in," he said. The firm is soon expanding to Milan, London and Copenhagen.

Recover Society does not own its equipment, Gropper explained. The business model brings together the gear, the expertise, the different partners and the space. Frequency is the key to success, so he is hoping KaDeWe's well-heeled clientele will use the services up to three times a week.

Loyalty-card data shows many KaDeWe customers visit at least once a week. Membership cards for Recover Society cost from €180 to €1,000 a month, pitched squarely at that repeat, affluent base.

The activewear assortment stocked by KaDeWe includes Stronger from Sweden and Mercer Amsterdam, alongside Berlin brands Wrstbhvr and Ante, which draw partly on the city's nightclub and streetwear scene. Better-known names such as Fabletics, Skims and On round out the offer.

Eighteen months in a protected building

Gasperini said the whole process, from the first discussions to the soft opening, took around 18 months. The biggest problems were logistical: moving futuristic fitness and recovery equipment into the landmark, and connecting enough power and running water for the new businesses.

The building's heritage status complicated both tasks. A hyperbaric chamber, running water for recovery treatments and the electrical load of a boutique fitness studio all had to be threaded through a structure protected by law and well over a century old.

The move is part of an ongoing process to make shopping more of an experience. KaDeWe is betting that its affluent, frequent visitors will treat wellness as a reason to stay longer and return more often across the floors.

The plan and what is undisclosed

Gasperini's route through the store links three floors: the fourth for training and recovery, the sixth for the food hall and the third for beauty. She described the aim as keeping a customer in the building for a whole morning.

Journalists at the preview were shown a Lagree demonstration in the Shapesty studio and toured the sports brands KaDeWe stocks. Recover Society's expansion suggests the hotel-to-department-store model is travelling, with Gropper framing it as a response to retailers wanting experience-led space.

KaDeWe has not disclosed what it invested, and no opening date beyond the soft opening was given. Recover Society's coming Milan, London and Copenhagen sites are the next concrete steps the source names.

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Images: KaDeWe