New retail concept

Designing luxury retail for the future

A new store concept for Harvey Nichols broke the rules and challenged the predictable and established principles of luxury retail.

Yes, luxury retail is renowned for high-end design, but it is also a category rife with cliché.

As Harvey Nichols embarked on a global reinvigoration of their store concept, it was keen to avoid the usual department store tropes and stay true to their brand values of being witty and fun.

Eschewing typical design

For the Harvey Nichols audience, luxury is not defined by brands themselves, but instead by the curated lifestyle they help to create. We knew that the new store concept would have to be designed around these customers rather than branded concessions.

Controlled disruption

Our guiding principle was the idea of ‘controlled disruption’ and that helped us to craft a truly unusual store layout. The disparity and eclectic approach to materiality, the contrast between rough and smooth surfaces, and the variety and quirkiness of the furniture created a very unusual, almost subversive design vocabulary.

Retail Week Awards:
Store of the Year

For the audience

A significant departure from the typical ‘shop within shop’ approach taken by most department stores today, Harvey Nichols customers were able to browse the department store in a way that felt truly unique and curated.

For the brand

The generic approach to branding, with no concessions, reinforced Harvey Nichols’s iconic status beyond labels. The project won a prestigious Store of the Year Award at the Retail Week Awards.