inspire: retail design blog » Luxury

Beautiful Plumage

Nick — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 08:59:34 +0000

Paul Smith talks about Paul Smith, look at that shopfront, retail is detail … (and passion) …

Season’s Greetings

Nick — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 09:34:19 +0000

Apologies for the total lack of posts on here and thanks to all of you who keep visiting.

Normal service (or even improved) will resume in the new year, in the meantime here’s a festive image from the Liberty atrium, splendid gold chains, an idea no doubt we will be borrowing for our own homes.

Christmas VM videos

Nick — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:00:11 +0000

A couple of nice little videos showing the leaders in UK retail and how they put together their visual merchandising for Christmas.

Originally via @retailfocus on twitter

Can you tell navy blue from black?

Nick — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 08:51:04 +0000

According to the PSFK Future of Retail Report …

67% of customers who try on items buy them. Only 10% of customers make a purchase that they haven’t tried on. That’s why stores have begun to make changing rooms more attractive to customers.

Lighting is of course the key element in changing rooms, if you can tell navy blue from black you know the lighting is working. Then come the add ons. Mary Portas when launching her new shop for women is going to have fitting rooms with a choice of lighting modes.

Neither do changing rooms have to be static tucked away in a corner. Bloomingdales in Santa Monica have installed pods that retract into the ceiling.

Also of note in the same ‘retailtainment’ vein, the Topman personal shopping suite by Lee Broom.

Cross merchandising the Harvey Nichols way

Nick — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 09:24:05 +0000

It’s always important to up sell in retail and being obvious about it is not always going to work. Sometime a bit of lateral thinking can go a long way. These ads from Harvey Nichols take cues from ecommerce sites as in ‘people who bought that also bought this’ but really in quality retail this kind of cross merchandising should be the norm, although generally it isn’t.

Three examples here but the full set from the original source on Fuel Your Creativity. Incidentally isn’t this a beautiful colour palette?

Louis Vuitton – Bond Street Windows

Nick — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:11:08 +0000

Lovely windows at Louis Vuitton Bond Street. A simple idea well executed.

More pictures on the Coolhunter.

Cox Cookies & Cake

Nick — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:12:05 +0000

Patrick Cox opened a new venture in Soho on Tuesday. Cox Cookies & Cake takes the current trend for all things cup cake/indulgence and adds a big dose of Soho neon chic.

The website as yet isn’t live but shows the intent with an animated neon identity, and thank goodness for a sign up form.

The website is at www.coxcookiesandcake.com their Facebook page is here.

Also on a cupcake note the recent Cupcake Champion of Great Britain 2010 (yes there is one) was David Bennett of the Sunshine Bakery in Chapel Allerton, Leeds, here’s his website www.sunshinebakeryleeds.co.uk.

National Cupcake Week takes place from 13-19 September 2010, you can follow them on twitter.com/CupcakeWeek.

Ah luxury

Nick — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 07:42:57 +0000

From Dezeen an article well worth a browse of the new Liberty of London boutique by the Paris based architects, Pierre Buecler and Jean-Christophe Poggioli. While the middle ground is suffering, Marks & Spencer and John Lewis for example, there still seems a lot of money left to make in the luxury end of the market as well as other opportunities for growth as shown by asos.