Remember those magazines with the yellow border and lots of pictures? You know – the ones you tended to find in dentists’ waiting rooms that, in spite of the fact that they were more than two or three years out of date, were still worth flicking through. And who knows, you might even have read some of the words that accompanied the pictures.
The organ in question is, of course, National Geographic, the publication that has occupied its own singular niche since 1888, when the first issue of the magazine was sent out to 200 readers. Since then its reach has become a little more global, hence its ubiquity in waiting rooms, but it remains true, more or less, to the mission statement of its 33 founding fathers in the 19th century, which was to create “a society for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge”.
Last week, another milestone was reached by this Washington DC-based organisation as it opened a three-floor 19,375 sq ft (1,800 sq m) store on Regent Street in collaboration with a European partner, brand management house Worldwide Retail Store. There has in fact been a web site from which National Geographic merchandise can be bought for some years and there also has been a store, of sorts, in the US headquarters. But for those seeking the retail embodiment of one of the world’s best-known brands, this is a first.
So why London, why Regent Street and perhaps equally cogently, why not the US? National Geographic president and chief executive John Fahey says: “We’d been trying to think about how we could take the brand to other places. We ran into Pere and his partners about two years ago and were struck by their reaction to the National Geographic.
“We are very much a world brand and decided that the store would have to be in one of the most important cities of the world.”
London and Regent Street seem to have fitted the bill and there have been hoardings across the front of five former stores on the western side of the lower reaches of this grand thoroughfare for close to 18 months.
And in case you were wondering, the Pere referred to by Fahey is Pere Matamales, the Barcelona-based chief executive of Worldwide Retail Store. Matamales is the man who has translated the National Geographic brand from a publishing hardy perennial, TV channel and online merchant, to a retail reality.
The outcome of his joint venture with National Geographic is the Regent Street store, which will be the first of several, he says. But there do appear to have been a number of hitches along the way. National Geographic and all those associated with the London store are tight-lipped about the difficulties that have been encountered, but the store was scheduled to open in autumn last year originally. At the time, it was rumoured to have been hit by issues surrounding the cost of the build.
Nonetheless, the store has now made it past the starting post and is trading. And from the outside, it does much to draw shoppers in, out of curiosity as much as anything else. With a frontage variously filled with sculptures of horses created from driftwood (there are four of them, which rather puts you in mind of the apocalypse – presumably not the idea), an Eastern souk-style café and an entrance that affords views towards what it describes as the “global marketplace” inside, this is not like any other shop on the street. In fact, it is not like any other store in London and this uniqueness alone is likely to encourage footfall.
A world away
Inside, the shop is equally different from Regent Street norms and what you would usually expect from a store. Just beyond the door is a green kiosk structure, looking like an old-fashioned news vendor’s shelter, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, is home to a variety of National Geographic magazines. Beyond this is the café at the far right-hand end of the building. With its oriental lanterns and service counter, this has more in common with a café in downtown Madrid than what you would normally find in London. A cluster of low wooden tables and benches are positioned around the counter and lighting levels have been kept deliberately low.
Back towards the entrance, the store becomes deeper, with views towards the rear of the shop dominated by what look like wooden packing crates that are in the process of being unbundled, strangely reminiscent of Phineas Fogg.
This is the “global marketplace”, which occupies most of the space at the back of the shop and is an area where you can buy ethnic bits and pieces, ranging from what look like coloured wooden spindles to a lacquered antique cupboard with paintings of Hindu deities on it. Many of the objects displayed are on wheeled pallets, which a National Geographic spokeswoman says is intended to make remerchandising and bringing in new stock more straightforward.
The floor of the area is tiered, the aim being to use the space for lectures and events from time to time. It’s the kind of experiential approach that marks this store out. Indeed, this is one of those rare instances of a store that really does merit the use of the E word – a term used by many retailers, but only occasionally with any justification.
Turn your back on the market and you will see a light sculpture composed of an illuminated pole around which weaves a double helix. This is supposed to remind the onlooker of the structure of DNA and is meant to serve as an indicator of National Geographic’s DNA project, which traces the movements of populations. This part of the shop also contains the long cash-and-wrap counter, formed from repurposed antique wooden cabinets.
The rest of the ground floor is, in essence, a gallery where everything is for sale, drawing on framed National Geographic images suspended in lines from the ceiling.
Downstairs, the same careful merchandising, of the sort more usually seen in a high-end US department store, is evident. On this floor there is National Geographic-branded clothing, which on close inspection appears to have a pretty aspirational price structure. A man’s garment-dyed long-sleeved cotton shirt, available in various colours, is on sale at£110, placing it ahead of the prices at nearby Abercrombie & Fitch. If there is one area that may need work, it is the price architecture – but this can be fixed, even if margins are hit.
On this floor the star of the show has to be the metal shipping container that has been painted red. Sections of it have been removed and internally lit niches created that act as wardrobes for cold-weather garments. The end of the container has been turned into a glass-sided chiller room, maintained at a frosty -7ºc or below, in which shoppers can test-drive the efficacy of the garment they are considering buying. The cold room even comes equipped with an infra-red camera that will show which bits of you are coldest as you stand around waiting to get frostbite.
The upper floor of the store benefits from a long run of windows that give superb views of Regent Street. This level houses an upscale travel consultancy, a Sony camera shop and more clothing, this time for a more mature demographic.
Opposite the travel agency is a travel book wall, which is filled with maps and volumes, and in the middle of the shop, in front of this, are museum display cabinets. These have been arranged in a row and rails that support clear-glass reading platforms, which can be moved along the upper side of the cabinets, mean that looking at a map can be done with relative ease. It is also worth noting the table with globes and African artefacts, which is shaped to resemble the eponymous continent.
This is all very impressive and shoppers will have much to look at, play with and think about. The store is clearly not aimed at low-budget shoppers but then again perhaps, even in these difficult times, on Regent Street it shouldn’t be. The next National Geographic store is set to open in Singapore in January. Future branches will clearly be dependent on the performance of the Regent Street debut. Matamales is pinning his hopes on a novel format at an infelicitous economic moment, but for sheer design chutzpah this shop has much to commend it.
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