Inside Gymshark’s new store that completes ‘triangle of London’ which lets its gym heritage do the heavy lifting

Hannah Mercer has been in her role at Gymshark for just short of a year, and it would be fair to say she’s been busy.

The brand, which prides itself on ‘doing gym’, has had a strong start to 2025 with its first opening outside of the UK in the Dubai Mall as well as confirming the opening of a US flagship store, and that’s not something it plans on slowing down anytime soon.

As the brand gears up to open the doors to its newest London-based store this weekend, Retail Week had a first look inside the new store at Westfield shopping centre, White City.

It’s significantly larger than its sister store at Westfield Stratford, spanning 9,000 sq ft and offering a vast range of womenswear, menswear and accessories.

“This Westfield is the biggest shopping centre in Europe with 28 million visitors a year, and being in a different consumer demographic, with more international consumers in West London, I think completes our triangle of London,” says Mercer.

Evidently proud of the bricks-and-mortar journey for Gymshark so far but with many more opportunities on the horizon, Mercer says she is enjoying being part of a founder-led brand that’s focused on curated, deliberate growth rather than it all being about large target numbers.

“What we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do is really intentional so I’m really sharp on getting this right.”

Welcoming White City

An evolution of its Stratford-based store concept, Core Plus, Gymshark’s new Westfield White City store oozes local personalisation.

Not only does it have gym plate chairs in its changing rooms and as the base of its displays, but it also uses a green shade inspired by Westfield being originally built on top of the famous 1930s race track.

With a bigger offering of exclusives than in Stratford as well as personal shopping on offer, a service that Mercer says has been a hit for the business, White City hopes to be the brand’s latest success story.

“It’s a different consumer, we’ve expanded the order and we’ve expanded the assortment,” she says. 

“We think about what we want to stand for as a brand and we always want to make sure we have those power products and our vital collection as our hero anchors.

“When we opened Stratford we always knew that wouldn’t be a solo core store within London—we always knew we wanted to go to the other side. It was about finding this right location with the right adjacencies, the right footprint in terms of size and making sure we do things because they are brand enhancing.”

With an assortment on offer that’s 20% larger than in its Stratford store, Mercer is confident there’s sure to be something for everyone.

To celebrate the opening, Gymshark is hosting a run club event starting at its Regent Street flagship and finishing up at Westfield, White City, at 10am on Saturday March 29, 2025, so its eager customers will be ready and waiting to flood in.

Going for global growth

The activewear space has become increasingly competitive during Gymshark’s lifespan, but Mercer is confident in her belief that the brand has a unique selling point that very much puts it in its own lane.

“We’re a lifting brand and we’re so focused about what we do and what we don’t do. If you think about all the other high-street brands that have gone into athleisure it’s because it’s on trend, but this isn’t an on-trend thing for us. It’s the DNA of the company.

“We do rest and lifestyle products, because you do need to rest when you go to the gym, but it is all about a sharp focus on gymwear and that’s what the other brands don’t do.

“They don’t specifically design product on what to wear in a gym, so we actually don’t feel that we have lots of competitors in this marketplace.

A gymwear specialist that first started as a menswear brand, Gymshark’s ecommerce sales are to date dominated by womenswear at around 54%.

This is something Mercer is proud of as she hails not only Gymshark’s now golden status of being a global gym brand, but also how the business supports women being present in the gym and lifting weights.

Mercer is however keen for Gymshark to not oversaturate and says it’s all about being in the right spaces that make sense for the business and its customer demographic.

“We’re at such a nice, early part of our journey in retail that it would be so easy to go and sign 100 leases and just roll out more of this [Westfield White City store concept], but that doesn’t mean anything. 

“It has to be about a plan and delivering a footprint that encapsulates the whole market through different propositions including off-price, full-price and flagships.”

With an opening in Amsterdam scheduled for the spring, Manchester’s Trafford Centre in the summer, and an experiential flagship in New York set to open its doors in the autumn, Gymshark doesn’t just “do gym” but evidently it does physical retail too.