Beauty lovers and retail experts have hailed the opening of the first Sephora store on the island of Ireland as “fantastic”.

Shoppers queued around the Victoria Square shopping complex in Belfast on Thursday morning hours ahead of the store’s 1pm opening time.

It is the beauty retailer’s first opening in the UK in 2026, and its 13th UK store to date.

The store is 2,550 sq ft and has been touted as a beauty playground with make-up services on offer as well as products on sale.

It brings a number of internet viral brands which are exclusively available in Sephora to the island of Ireland for the first time.

These include Hailey Bieber’s rhode and Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs, as well as Makeup By Mario, Merit Beauty, INNBeauty Project and Tower 28.

Sephora UK said Belfast is the first of several store openings planned in 2026, with a site Bristol set to open this spring.

Glyn Roberts, chief executive of Retail NI, said it was great news for the city centre, describing a destination retailer that will attract shoppers to travel to the Northern Ireland capital.

“It’s a fantastic investment, not just in Victoria Square and the city centre, but this is the first store on the island and Scotland, so it will quickly become a destination retailer,” he said.

“All the traders in the city centre are going to benefit from the extra football that this store is going to generate, so it is a genuine good news story.

“We’ve had so many bad headlines about stores closing, it’s actually really good to be here this morning at a store opening.

“It shows there is light at the end of the tunnel for the challenges that our high streets face.

“Is there more that we need to do in the city centre, yes there is, but I think today is a big step forward.”

Clare Guinness, chief executive of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce, said it had been a coup to secure the first Sephora on the island over Dublin.

“It’s terrific to have Sephora in Belfast, we’re so delighted to welcome them. It’s a global brand we can normally only visit on holiday, we can now visit in our own city,” she said.

“And what’s exciting is, it obviously appeals to people like me in middle age, but also my 13-year-old daughter is excited too, so you’ve got cross-generational appeal.

“It’s such a coup to get this over Dublin. We are the second city on the island but we’re the first to have Sephora. I think it’s going to fly in Belfast.”

Sarah Boyd, managing director of Sephora UK, said opening the store has been two and a half years in the making.

She also hinted at potential further store openings on the island if the Belfast store is as successful as they expect.

“We’re beyond excited to be here, and we have the most incredible team all hired locally,” she said.

“This is two and a half years in the making, and it is just great to open today.”

Asked what had swayed the decision to open in Belfast, Ms Boyd described looking at cities, and for vibrant beauty communities that are maybe a little under-served.

“Belfast was one of the places that really early in the process came up as somewhere that we had so much response from people saying, ‘please come to Belfast, please come to Northern Ireland and please come to Ireland’ generally,” she said.

“We knew there was that community here already, and as soon as I visited a couple of years ago, I knew that it was going to be a great home for us here.

“At the moment all of the other stores opening this year are all either in England or Scotland, but if the response here is overwhelming, then of course we’ll be looking at more locations.”

The economy was helped in the quarter by Jaguar Land Rover, with the carmaker bringing production back online after a major cyber-attack. But a period of uncertainty in the run-up to November’s Budget, with speculation about tax changes, caused some to withhold investment.