Store gallery: Harvey Nichols Beauty Bazaar, Liverpool

Department store operators tend to act in fairly predictable ways. In a multi-floor site, if it’s the ground floor then it must be beauty and accessories, first floor tends to mean fashion, second floor homewares and the basement is for anything that’s left over…or menswear.

The majority of retailers in the sector do not, however, tend to spin off elements of their offer to trade as separate standalone stores. Harvey Nichols is an exception to these generalities.

Last year it opened a pop-up food hall in the centre of Liverpool that attracted both column inches and customers in the run-up to Christmas.

This year, as the season of goodwill comes into sharp focus once more, in addition to opening another pop-up food hall in Liverpool, Harvey Nichols has unveiled something rather more permanent. Its Beauty Bazaar is a three-floor, 22,000 sq ft shop that offers a single category – pampering and the accoutrements needed to improve upon nature.

Designed by Four IV, the London-based design consultancy that the retailer has used in locations as diverse as Knightsbridge and Istanbul, the store sits on the site formerly occupied by Habitat. As such, it is at the heart of “the most charismatic, passionate city in the UK, if not Europe”, according to chief executive Joseph Wan.

Maybe so, but whatever view you take of Liverpool’s place in the Euro-league of passionate cities, there is little doubt that this is a departure for a department store and the exterior view is appealing. Fashioned to look like a piece of grey crystal with multiple facets, the surround for the store windows succeeds in standing out from its neighbours.

Before heading indoors however, the most obvious question is why Liverpool? Concessions and beauty director Daniela Rinaldi puts things simply: “Liverpool girls spend four times the national average on beauty and are second only to London in terms of spend. They’ve been flying the flag for beauty for years.”

Beyond the capital, making Liverpool the first port of call for a beauty format therefore makes sense and, as group property and facilities director Barry Tallintire points out: “Spaces this size in the right place aren’t always around when you look for them.”

There is also the little matter that Liverpool does not have a full-line Harvey Nichols store, unlike Bristol, Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh. Beauty Bazaar therefore represents a foot in the door in a location it might not otherwise consider.

Retail theatre

Stepping inside the dramatic doors, after pausing to look at an elongated white sculpture that appears to run up through the floors and provides a link between the different levels, the view is uncluttered.

It’s little surprise to see that the core beauty offer is on the ground floor. This means the big brands are given the largest space, and Tom Ford, new to Liverpool, occupies pole position just inside the entrance.

It is inevitable when dealing with multiple brands that each will wish to have its own shopfit. Making the store feel as if it belongs to the retailer, rather than the brands, is therefore pretty much the first task confronting any operator in the sector. Beauty Bazaar achieves this with a black upper perimeter surround that unites the floor while giving the brands room to move.

A central escalator divides the floor in half and, as well as interwoven metal panels (which were “very expensive” according to Four IV creative director Chris Dewar-Dixon) used to add definition to the perimeter, there are light boxes and flat screens.

The floor’s showstopper is hidden until the shopper arrives at the back, however. Here, the perimeter has been divided into a series of narrow shelves with gold and white bookends. Between them are different brands of perfume and above it all, the upper perimeter has been fashioned to imitate the spines of books. Dewar-Dixon refers to it as a “scent library” but the label isn’t necessary, this one speaks for itself. It also means that the bookends can be moved to accommodate more or less of a particular brand, giving flexibility to the area and allowing remerchandising almost at the drop of an atomiser.

Wow factor

Heading upstairs, via an escalator that features a screen showing content from the brands and uses the same faceted wall, but in white, as appears on the store exterior, the shopper arrives at a more open space with a bar at its far end. This is the Wow bar, so called owing to the name that appears in strings of sparkly diamante beads that hang around its entrance. The bar itself is visible from street level outside, ensuring visitors are aware that there is more to the store than a ground floor beauty offer, according to Rinaldi.

The bar is a glitzy affair and affords views across the rest of the floor, as well as potentially prolonging in-store dwell-time.

Those quaffing a glass of champagne or perhaps a “molecule martini” will see a series of more mid-market brands than on the ground floor. They will also see a large, white, circular nail bar, complete with rhinestone-studded nail dryers.

To the left there are what Rinaldi refers to as the “pedi cabanas” – curtained cubicles where toenails can be painted while the customer sits on a “throne” and flicks through the Harvey Nichols online offer, courtesy of an iPad.

Finally, there’s a hairdressing salon, open-plan, to ensure that a complete makeover can be effected.

The whole floor is about seeing and being seen and the overhead light feature, comprised of an inset swirl that runs from the bar to the salon, ensures that the eye is drawn through the space.  And if nature calls, those pausing to admire their new make-up or hair-do in front of the large mirror in the restroom on this floor receive an automated wolf-whistle.

Attracting attention

For shoppers requiring more than cosmetics or a cut and blow-dry, a set of stairs near to the Wow bar leads to the top floor, where a range of treatments involving lasers, chemical peels and suchlike are available. And perhaps the most notable thing in the whole of this area is a graphic showing a partially wrapped bar of chocolate. It’s not going to make you beautiful, but it is certainly good-looking.

In total, this is a glamorous store and it has to be. Rinaldi says that a brand such as Clinique, which has an area on the ground floor, is on offer in other locations in the city. “Do they [Clinique] really need another door in Liverpool? Probably not. We have to give customers something more to ensure that they come in,” she says.

Unusually, this format has not been designed with Liverpool particularly in mind. Tallintire says that most Harvey Nichols stores are created to reflect the city they are located in, but the underlying intention behind Beauty Bazaar is that it should be portable – ready for the next “eight to 10 locations that we are actively looking at in the UK”.Tallintire says that the initial tranche of shops will be in towns and cities where Harvey Nichols does not have a store at present.

It has cost north of £4m to turn this building from a homewares retailer into a beauty boudoir where adornment, rather than fairly minimalist design, is the order of the day.

It will be interesting to see how long it is before a second branch makes an appearance.