Open season

With ecommerce growth now slowing, fashion brands are increasingly recognising the value of physical stores.

Store portfolio expansion is becoming more strategic than ever, and new openings are increasingly designed to meet evolving consumer expectations and demonstrate brand value.

We look at how some of the key players are increasing their physical store presence and how store formats are evolving.

Destination stores
Flagship-style, destination stores in high profile locations remain a core part of fashion brand store strategy. The industry has seen key players putting significant focus on this over the last few years, with brands such as Zara closing smaller regional stores and embracing larger spaces for merchandising and immersive branding. This enables brands to create engaging and innovative spaces that optimise brand storytelling, with more opportunity for experiential elements.

Uniqlo are expanding store presence rapidly across the UK, having opened four stores this year in city locations. The new stores are successful in using localism as a strategy to reflect their ethos of catering to needs of diverse lifestyles. Uniqlo’s Edinburgh store opened earlier this year, made unique by incorporating locally made furniture, partnering with an Edinburgh based charity, as well as its RE.UNIQLO STUDIO, where customers can find limited edition embroidery by popular Scottish drink IRN-BRU. Their third opening on Oxford Street focuses on optimising convenience, differentiating the store from others, while simultaneously providing an experiential element through its partnership with a local London graphic designer to promote its prominent UT and UTme! collections.

Localised concept stores
While destination-style, flagship locations remain important, many fashion brands are recognising the potential missed opportunity from neglecting regional locations. To address this some are starting to expand into smaller-format concept-style stores with bespoke product lines that are tailored to specific audiences.

Primark has just launched its first small format store in Montijo, Portugal, of c.2,500m² which is significantly smaller than Primark's traditional store format. The store includes a curated offer of fashion, beauty and homeware, and has been designed with sustainability at the forefront. Its strategic design enables it to appear like a larger format store, optimising visibility of the full product offer from outside the store, as well as clear sightlines and a premium-style beauty section format. Its location in a smaller town outside Lisbon, with a population of c.55k goes against Primark’s traditional model of large stores in larger towns or city locations, reflecting the trend towards retailers looking for ways to capture shoppers who are not prepared to travel to visit flagship-style branches. Primark plans to roll-out this style of store further, with a second store of this type planned to open in Bolton.

Earlier this year, H&M launched a unique concept store on King’s Road, London, in a Grade II listed building, designed to reflect the aesthetic of the neighbourhood’s heritage of fashion and arts. The store includes a handpicked selection of H&M’s most luxurious and innovative pieces, to create a more premium offer and position itself as a fashion destination. The store also serves as a hub for events and activations, encouraging customers to develop an affiliation with the brand.

M&S is launching its first ever fashion and beauty-only boutique at Battersea Power Station, a smaller format store than its more traditional stores, stocking a streamlined selection of their most premium clothing lines, as well as a range of beauty products. The aim of the store is to increase the brand’s presence as a leading fashion and beauty retailer through focusing on its more premium offer.


The evolution of fashion store formats highlights the importance of brands tailoring stores to specific locations to meet diverse consumer needs. From flagship destination stores in prime locations to innovative smaller-format concept stores, brands are increasingly leveraging physical spaces to tell their stories and create engaging experiences. The need to capture regional and micro-location audiences is not a new concept. Brands are increasingly recognising the role of the store in terms of strategically tailored product lines, innovative fit-out and design in creating relevant experiences for customers, rather than the more traditional format of cookie-cutter style stores dominating regional high streets.

Emily Brown