Store gallery: Harrods opens it doors to the jetset at Gatwick Airport

It’s certainly not Knightsbridge but it does attract the jetset, so Harrods has opened a shop in Gatwick’s South Terminal.

The 6,200 sq ft store is the biggest single unit in the terminal, apart from the enormous Duty Free shop that every passenger heading for departures has to walk through.

While it would be expected that a luxury retailer of this kind would offer a raft of signature products (Harrods-branded merchandise, shifting leather jackets from Ermenegildo Zegna at £1,000 or dresses at £500 might seem more of a challenge.

For 15 years previously Harrods had a Gatwick store that traded solely in own-brand teddy bears, biscuits and suchlike, but this new space is aimed at aspirational travellers who are likely to be passing through the terminal. The new appearance of the store is intended to reflect that.

It also, inevitably, invites comparison with the Harrods store at Heathrow’s Terminal 5, which opened in 2008 and is almost twice the size of the Gatwick branch.

International customers

At Gatwick, Harrods has called upon the services of London design consultancy Wanda to create the look and
feel of the interior. Like almost every other retailer in the airport, this is an open-fronted structure with the logo attached to a curving frieze that runs the length of the store as it follows the passenger walkway.

Harrods has opted for a wave-like frontage, rather than operating from a box, as it does at Terminal 5. Gary Wilson, head of buying for Harrods’ airport operations, says that at present the customer arriving at Gatwick is likely to be different from those at Terminal 5. “We know it’s not a Terminal 5 customer yet, so what this store is about is flexibility,” he says.

In effect, this means that Harrods is indulging in a little crystal ball gazing as far as customer profile development is concerned. “Gatwick is marketing to that international customer and there is a customer who comes through this airport who wants to buy product at this level,” says Wilson.

Premium design

Starting at the left-hand side of the shop, where the more upscale merchandise is housed, the first thing that the shopper will see is cruisewear. Broadly, this means brightly printed clothing in lightweight fabrics. The garments are easily spotted, not just for their colour but also because of the relatively neutral backdrop that has been provided to showcase them.

Harrods head of airport retail Kelly Robinson says the interior in the ready-to-wear part of the store has been designed to create an envelope for the various brands that have been given floorspace.

Within this, each has been allowed to create its own identity but the overarching principle is that the space belongs to Harrods, not the brands. As such, it’s a simple iteration of the ‘branded house’ that most of the bigger department stores in the UK tend to veer towards these days, rather than a house of brands.

Great care has been taken over the construction of the ‘house’ and what is immediately apparent is that little expense has been spared in the palette of materials.

Corian (artificial marble), steel and etched glass are at the heart of this and the result is an interior that has the same luxury airport ambience as the Terminal 5 store, which was designed by consultancy Fitch.

There are 30 branded spaces in this shop, compared with 65 in Terminal 5, with the brands ranging from Hackett and Longchamp to Paul Smith. Few elements of the offer could be regarded as luxury, but there is little doubt that it has a premium air and it is certainly aspirational in terms of Gatwick South.

Moving away from cruisewear and accessories, there is a series of open-fronted rooms as shoppers move from one end of the shop to the other. Each contains a single brand and each is recognisably from a specific stable, but shoppers will still be aware that they are in Harrods.

At the far end of the shop, the space between the back wall and walkway that skirts the shop deepens. This is the store’s “signature” area and everything one might normally expect to find in a Harrods airport shop is present and correct, including quilted pink handbags with the retailer’s logo picked out in gold, branded tea caddies and the almost inevitable blue duffel-coated Paddington Bear fixture.

This part of the shop is divided between accessories at the front and a food hall at the back and along the rear wall.

Homage is paid to the Brompton Road store in the shape of ornate, decorative tiles along the back wall, as can be found in the flagship food hall.

A carefully considered offer

In total, the signature area is probably less than a third of the store’s space, but Wilson says it is anticipated it will account for about 45% of turnover.

That is not entirely surprising, given that much of what is on show is at little more than generous pocket money prices and gifting seems likely to form a substantial part of the reason for visiting the store.

Finally, and perhaps in case the shopper really has been walking around with eyes closed, just beyond the signature shop and forming part of the sole exterior wall there is a sparkly picture of the original Harrods store formed from small LEDs. This looks a little like a festive join-the-dots pattern and is hard to miss.

Mention should also be made of the fact that there is a toilet adjacent to the cruisewear part of the shop, which Wilson says will act as a “traffic driver” - whatever works.

The next item on the airport agenda for Harrods will be to do something similar in Gatwick’s North Terminal, which Robinson says is 18 months away. The South Terminal store represents what has been taking place more generally at the airport - an upgrading of the interior and the offer it contains.

Gatwick is the spiritual home of the package holiday and Harrods has looked at its potential audience and how to develop it with great care. Robinson says that the retailer continues to consider where it might open new airport shops.

Harrods at Gatwick is a good response to the aspirational holiday traveller.