Friday, March 25, 2011

Massimo Dutti :: Regent Street

There's a good review of one of our recently completed store refits for Massimo Dutti on Regent Street in Retail Week. John Ryan covers the facelift project in some detail, interviewing Dilip Patel for a walk around.

"The idea that a store needs to be refreshed on a regular basis is as old as, if not the hills, then certainly the middle of the last century. The notion runs that, every so often, a store’s internal decor needs a bit of a facelift and that, if this doesn’t happen, like those of a certain age who have not enjoyed cosmetic surgery, things sag a bit and the cracks begin to show.
There’s been a branch of Inditex brand Massimo Dutti on Regent Street since 2002 and the road was, in fact, the first point of UK landfall for this retail format. Close to a decade later, it had reached the point where a number of minor alterations and mini-makeovers had been effected, according to Inditex UK and Ireland managing director Dilip Patel, but there had not been a full-scale rethink. Now the store has just emerged from a four-week revamp with a new look that Patel says is more in tune with the altered reality of Regent Street during the nine years Massimo Dutti has been in this country.

“The street’s changed a lot and there are a lot of new competitors,” he says. “There are still plenty of male shoppers, but now there are many female shoppers on Regent Street as well.”
It’s a view that signals a clear understanding of the gradual evolution of the street during the period. It has gone from a thoroughfare that for much of its length was filled with grand but somewhat timeworn shops that catered predominantly for men to a fully fledged fashion destination. And as such, the appearance of every retailer from Mango to Zara by way of, say, H&M has meant the gender balance of the shopper population along the street has also changed...."

Full story here

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Mango :: Regent Street

We are currently undertaking a complete interior fit-out of the Mango flagship store on Regent Street, and will shortly unveil the new store design. This follows on from other projects in London and across the UK for the ultra-fashionable Spanish retailer. Watch this space....