Luxury Briefing.

A recent visit to the Dunhill store reminded us of just how far luxury in the 21st century has come. Here, in a store that is a ‘home’ – and a home that once belonged to the Duke of Westminster – the drama, sharpness and carefully crafted handwriting that is the Dunhill signature are assiduously laid out.

Traditional retail plays little or no part in this process. The staff treat you like a guest (a welcome one at that), and while there is certainly the Dunhill lifestyle on sale, alongside it there is also the encouragement to explore Alfred Dunhill’s archives, attend a movie (yes there’s a screening room), eat (there’s a restaurant), drink (there’s a bar), have a shave (there’s a barber shop), even educate yourself about cigars (Cuban only), tailoring and – thanks to the regular talks and lectures held in the space’s Discovery Room – butt plugs. Yes, butt plugs, courtesy of a recent talk by Coco de Mer’s Sam Roddick. A luxury store then, but not in the conventional sense of luxury, or indeed in the conventional sense of a store.
Visiting it, thinking about our visit afterwards, we were struck by the fact that this is how stores will be in the future. We are seeing glimpses of this in Mood Swings in Moscow (where the store reflects the mood of city, or of its customers); in the Pasona o2 Urban Farm, Tokyo (where luxury lettuces are grown in-store for customers to choose and pick); even in the growing use of abandoned spaces – warehouses, derelict shops, empty carparks – as retailers, driven by the recession on one hand, and the need to woo world-weary consumers away from the keyboard on the other, get creative.

We are even witnessing the rise of itinerant or gypsy retail: Clemens en August is a touring luxury clothing retailer that lands in contemporary art galleries around the world, most recently Vienna, Frankfurt and Tokyo. It sells in three-day stints and doesn’t advertise. However, the brand attracts around 5,000 new sign-ups annually via its website, which gives updates on its next city and location.

Similarly, Comme des Garçons runs a temporary mini-market at London’s St Martins Lane hotel, that is an extension of its fixed location, but equally quirky Dover Street Market concept. In another example of itinerant retailing, London’s Squatters Ltd, created by Berlin designer Karolin Maier-Hauff, allows emerging designers to ‘squat’ in a centrally located store for one to six months, with each designer moving on when he or she has become better established, or when the shop is closed and a new squat liberated and opened.

But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Globally, we are witnessing a push towards retail that challenges our expectations, but also our senses and our sense of what retail is, or can become when we apply creativity and imagination to the process.
Space 15 Twenty in Los Angeles, for instance, looks like one of those Boho independents that we all love to visit and talk about when we are abroad, but examine it closely and you’ll  find that it is in reality a new concept store by Urban Outfitters. Designers are allowed to curate their own individual spaces within the store, while local artists, musicians and furniture makers are encouraged to use its inner courtyards and precincts to tout their wares.

For a more instant in-store spatial experience, Yoeri Treffers’ ‘inflatable void’, a blow-up space made of Tyvek, can create a tactile temporary space in under 20 seconds using its ceiling fan. Meanwhile in Berlin, RGB combines a gallery, fashion studio, exhibition space, shop and bar, creating a fully encompassing lifestyle outlet for customers. The key to the success of this store is its colourful method of communicating an in-store experience. Each month everything at RGB, from the stock it sells to its walls, changes colour between red, green or blue – hence its name. Fashion brand Permanent Vacation’s store, on the other hand, uses tactile cues, deliberately protruding touch points and raw surfaces to encourage customers to touch and feel the brand ethos.

Retailers, then, are fighting back. Accepting the inevitability of online retailing (and the benefits it brings) bricks and mortar retailers, we believe, are at last understanding that the sales per square foot philosophy they have been pursuing for much of the mid- to late-20th century isn’t necessarily the wisest one to pursue in a decade where all that can be ordered online will be ordered online. In its stead we are witnessing the rise of a wonder per square foot philosophy which is more in keeping with the needs, dreams and desires of the sensory experience shopper. A customer, in other words, who wants us to put the theatre back in retail, and to bring to the retail experience a new level of sensory engagement and, dare we say it, a sense of fun, wonder and awe. Dunhill are hard at doing this, Louis Vuitton we believe is about to do it in its new revamped, and revitalized flagship store in Bond Street, while concept stores like Merci in Paris and Spazio Rosanna Orlandi continue to do it on a daily basis. Once, the latter, particularly, were curiosities; now they are part of a much bigger movement to make retail less about convenience and commerce (that, after all, is what the internet is there for), and more about culture and curiosity. Welcome to the Experience Economy.

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