Store design: Design heroes

It has been a tough year and there are few signs of an improvement on the horizon. But while many retailers may be feeling that as one door shuts another one closes, a quick glance at the new stores that have opened across the world in the past 12 months shows that things are far from moribund. Last week Retail Week published Stores 2008, a review of the best that has been unveiled since Stores 2007 was published in September last year.

With the support of Land Securities, the 50 selected stores have an inevitable UK bias, but in truth it would have been straightforward to include double or even treble that number from this country or overseas. The task therefore has been one of editing rather than any kind of head scratching and wondering what to cover.

Last week also brought the 11th annual Retail Interiors Awards and some of the winners from that occasion are featured in the book.

To give you a flavour of Stores 2008, displayed here is a sample of the shops that are profiled in its pages.

To order your free copy of Stores 2008, e-mail editorial@retail-week.com. But hurry, copies are limited

John Lewis food hall – Oxford Street

UK retail interior of the year

In collaboration with sister chain Waitrose, a portion of the ground floor of John Lewis’ Oxford Street flagship has been turned into a food hall. This is most definitely not a supermarket, although all ingredients for a posh meal are in place. Shoppers are presented with a food hall that smacks of an old-style grocer. The predominantly dark wood shop fit is radically different from the white minimalism that characterises the rest of the ground floor, promoting a sense that the shopper is entering a store within a store.

Naked – Istanbul

For sheer extravagance, this store must be a contender for shop of the year. Consider the wisdom of putting abstract human forms into a retail space where clothing is the main event and then not bothering to put any garments on them. Then think about details such as an exploding comet, signified by translucent perspex rods emanating from a point in the ceiling, and large holes carved out of raw cement walls and the post-apocalyptic nature of this retail vision becomes apparent. This store may smack of design for design’s sake, but it is absolutely worth a look.

Reiss – Picton Place, London

With quite possibly the most avant-garde store front to be unveiled in the past 12 months, Reiss’ sparkling new flagship store in the heart of London’s West End is an icon of good store design. The shop’s fabric is sheathed in a ribbed polycarbonate material with incorporated lighting that turns the building into a show-stopper by night. Internally, it is an exercise in restraint and the careful deployment of quality materials where a less is more ethos informs the merchandising. Reiss makes a point of ensuring each of its stores is different. This branch is worthy of its flagship status.

New Look – Liverpool

It is nearly half a decade since New Look unveiled its iconic store on Oxford Street that was hailed, at the time, as the future of store design. Now the fashion retailer has decided that it is time to move on and the outcome, courtesy of a design put together in-house and with Kew-based consultancy Caulder Moore, is a silver and grey fashion emporium that puts New Look back at the forefront of mid-market fashion environments. This three-floor shop is testimony to the retailer’s ability to reinvent its interiors, providing shoppers with a steady stream of novelty.

HMV – Merry hill centre, dudley

This is the store design that has helped turn around the fortunes of HMV and helped it post market defying results this year. Created by London consultancy Dalziel + Pow, this is an entertainment store that embraces the convergence of the digital, film and gaming worlds with an interior that has distinct areas for each. In doing so, HMV has a store format that really encourages increased dwell times, a factor that is essential in this highly competitive market sector where the online operators continue to challenge the terrestrial merchants.

Seibu – Jakarta

US design practice Callison has worked to create a store that aims to establish Japanese department store retailer Seibu’s brand in Indonesia. At 108,000 sq ft (10,000 sq m), this is the largest international department store in the country and caters for high-end shoppers with a mix of bold architecture and fashion. The entire interior is focused on a five-storey high etched glass, chrome and mirrored atrium with cantilevered balconies aimed at showcasing the visual merchandising. Cherry blossom images are used as a symbolic reference to the brand’s Japanese heritage.

Geometry – Berlin

The partners who run Berlin design consultancy Plajer + Franz Studio claimed to be tired of the reach me down appeal of “shabby chic” stores when they created this modish in-store environment. With polished dark wood and graphics featuring animal skulls, this is a very long way from the industrial look that characterises so much of the fashion interiors to be found in the German capital. As a dark take on a relatively small space, this is the kind of retail interior that fosters an almost Gothic sensibility. Also worth noting is the uniformly high specification thoughout.

Rough Trade East – London

The shop lives up to its name with an interior that exhibits the best of rough and ready warehouse chic. This is how we all probably think an entertainment shop should look, but so rarely does. Stark white-washed upper walls and ceilings contrast with the black mid-shop equipment and industrial-looking lighting overhead. This store has all the elements: a coffee shop; a performance stage; exhibition space; and an internet-cum-workshop area. And at 5,000 sq ft (465 sq m), it is a fraction of the size of some of its competitors’ outlets in the West End, but it packs a big punch.

The winners

• Best edge-of-town Marks & Spencer, Lisburn
• Best-in-store catering and hospitality Marks & Spencer, Newcastle
• Best small shop Oxfam, Westbourne Grove, London
• Best VM solution Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly
• Department store interior of the year Debenhams, Liverpool
• Fashion retail interior of the year Nike ID, London
• Food and supermarket design of the year John Lewis food hall, Oxford Street
• Green store of the year Marks & Spencer, Bournemouth
• Health and beauty design of the year AHAVA, London
• Best international retail interior Asian Paints,Mumbai, India
• Retail destination of the year Wyevale, Bicester
• Shopfitting excellence awards Fortnum & Mason
• Shopfitter of the year Portview Fit-Out
• UK retail interior of the year John Lewis food hall, Oxford Street

See more of the award winners – and more than 1,000 images of all the stores in Retail Week – with commentary by store design expert John Ryan on our Stores Image Gallery at retail-week.com/stores