The very best stores of 2010

In new-store terms, 2010 started relatively quietly and logic might have told you that it would stay that way. This, after all, was the year that followed a period in which many UK retailers had more or less put their store design departments into cold storage. And, although the economy picked up as the year went on, dire warnings were being uttered about what would happen when the coalition got its act together and put in place a programme of fiscal responsibility (for which read ‘cuts’).

Why, therefore, would any sensible retailer opt to upgrade an estate, much less invest money in new stores? In spite of this line of thinking, however, and perhaps counter-intuitively, many of the bigger retailers have upped the ante this year with store designs aimed at ensuring they retain their place in the competitive scheme of things.

You could perhaps date the kick-off for all of this to early February, when it was revealed that HMV had decided that one way of boosting sales might be to bolt an HMV store to a branch of Waterstone’s and put the whole thing into an edge-of-town shed. In the event, this was not a terribly auspicious piece of new store design and there has been just one repeat of the pilot store seen in Wallsend in Tyne and Wear.

In fact, things didn’t really get going until March when Inditex unveiled a new look for its Bershka store on Oxford Street, aimed at providing visitors with the ambience of a nightclub with low lights and space-age retro graphics and fixtures. With a few exceptions, this set the scene for 2010 in the UK, as it was fashion rather than any other sector that offered the store design highlights. The reason for this is relatively straightforward. The UK fashion market is one of the continent’s most crowded and yet in spite of this, new and recent arrivals such as Forever 21, Anthropologie and even its more time-honoured sister brand, Urban Outfitters, kept opening new stores.

All of which might give the impression that homegrown fashion retailers had stood around and twiddled their collective thumbs. This would be massively inaccurate. In May, Topshop opened a 15,000 sq ft, three-floor store in Knightsbridge with an interior based, in part, on consultancy Dalziel + Pow’s blueprint, which had helped the retailer make its New York debut on Broadway in 2009. Knightsbridge was a move on from what had been seen in the Big Apple, with the principal feature being a staircase with lights set into each step that could be dimmed or made brighter, depending on the required mood. There was even the spike - a feature that looked as if somebody had thrust a spear up through the floors from the basement and which served no particular purpose other than to be eye-catching.

All sewn up

Heading in the other direction, to New York, the sewing machine shop, aka All Saints, continued to spread the word according to Mr Singer, of hand-operated sewing machine fame, with a store that received rave reviews and that was mobbed by shoppers. All Saints may not have hugely developed its interiors during 2010, but this is certainly one of the more finely honed acts, which continues to find favour with well-heeled shoppers.

Back in the UK, no review of fashion store development would be complete without mention being made of the Levi’s flagship on Regent Street. This one was designed by Checkland Kindleysides and was intended to remind the denim brand’s customers of Levi’s artisanal heritage. Whether it succeeded in this aim or not, this was one of 2010’s most outstanding pieces of store design.

The final major fashion store event took place in September, when Selfridges reopened its women’s shoe department on its Oxford Street flagship’s second floor. At 35,000 sq ft, this became in a single footstep, the world’s largest shoe department. The space was divided up by architect Jamie Fobert, who succeeded in creating six galleries, with 11 boutiques around them, to impart a more manageable feel to this very substantial area. Tickets to the opening party were among the hottest in town and the shop-in-shop has been crowded ever since - which you might be forgiven for expecting when the £10m-plus price tag for the job is taken into consideration.

Bright sparks

Not everything was about fashion, however. April marked the arrival on these shores of US electricals retailer Best Buy, which made landfall in the Thurrock retail park in Essex. The store design was a translation of the US format and quite a bit better than what you might encounter across the water thanks to the efforts of Birmingham-based consultancy The One Off, which created a white overhead superhighway that took the eye through the store in a distinctly non-traditional manner. Dixons responded by upgrading its Currys Megastore, not 400 metres away, with it becoming its best performer.

It was not until November that Comet, the other player in this game, responded with a more user-friendly format featuring graphics with hand-written fonts and a non-technical sounding tone of voice. All in all, the electricals sector is a rather better place than it was at the beginning of the year.

Food also had its moments. Waitrose unveiled several new formats, including a combined home and food store in Leeds and it also refined its convenience stores, with an easy-to-shop, highly edited version in Cambridge. For Sainsbury’s, bigger was the watchword for 2010 as it opened a 100,000 sq ft behemoth in Crayford, southeast London. This was pretty much like a normal large Sainsbury’s, but even bigger and with better graphics, wayfinding and a general merchandise offer that provided a real alternative to going to a specialist. And, as there was also a large mezzanine, the supermarket created an in-store clothing shop that aimed to be just that, instead of the more usual supermarket shelves that just happened to have garments on them.

The final flourish for food was provided by Tony Bromovsky, an entrepreneur on a mission to find a “third way” between “the efficiency of the supermarkets and the theatre of the farmer’s market”. The outcome was Union Market, a food store consisting of a series of stalls, market style, in the former premises of Fulham Broadway underground station. He started with an architectural gem and made it better.

Perhaps it might also be worth noting that Apple opened another architecturally stunning store in Covent Garden, on the site of the former Rock Garden restaurant. It was impressive, but mildly disappointing as not a great deal had been done with the store layout and fixturing and this was still, well, an Apple store.

A strong year for retail design then and as we move towards 2011, there is every reason for optimism - which must be a turn-up for the books when the general climate is taken into account.