Beyond Retail

January: Urban Outfitters creates cultural hub

Retailer Urban Outfitters creates Space 15 Twenty in a former lighting warehouse. The space features mini-shops selling a curated selection of other brands’ products to give the store the feeling of a neighbourhood.

Key Development: Brands are collaborating with their contemporaries, behaving not just as stockists, but as community hubs.

March: Liberty swaps shops with a trio of international names

Liberty of London collaborates with globally renowned retailers Merci, 10 Corso Como and Target. The brand’s iconic floral prints feature on clothing, accessories and in products and spaces.

The synergy between the brands is of mutual benefit to all parties, and demonstrates the changing, more collaborative face of fashion retail.

Key Development: Well thought-out brand synergies reach a global audience on a localised level.

September: Burberry focuses on retail theatre

Burberry invites customers to watch its spring/summer 2011 show in stores that have been customised with enhanced acoustics, touchscreens and video walls.

Visitors are able to experience the music, clothing and energy of the show, with the option to buy clothes immediately from a custom-built app.

Key Development: Merging the online with the live, Burberry brings the digital world to life in a physical space giving physical expression to its range of digital innovations.

July: Wonderwall and Winkreative design a store around a character

Tokyo-based design firm Wonderwall, in collaboration with Tyler Brûlé of branding consultancy Winkreative, design Man on the Boon in Seoul. The menswear store concept is based on a fictional character, signalling the rise of Personality Brands in future-facing retail design.

Key Development: Embracing fictional characters helps brands to better connect with consumers, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Consumers on Facebook, for example, are more likely to bond with a character or persona than a company page.

August: ASOS and Barneys move in V-commerce

Both ASOS and Barneys New York create shoppable videos in which viewers can click on the models in order to buy what they are seeing.

Key Development: This merging of content and commerce lets people buy at the moment of inspiration, and enables them to decide to opt in.

August: Louis Vuitton gets collaborative in pop-up experiment

In a partnership with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, Louis Vuitton created an all-encompassing, immersive campaign including seven unique locations and pop-up stores across the globe – all this alongside awe-inspiring shop windows, an iPhone app, a coffee table book and a gamified viral video.

Key Development: The success of Louis Vuitton’s campaign has been to make each pop-up shop newsworthy, generating excitement. Consumers flocked to see the store designs as much as the products.

September: McQ opens technology-augmented store

McQ, the diffusion brand from Alexander McQueen, opens its first store in London’s Dover Street, which features interactive technology such as a Stikus table and a social media-connected mirror to enable digital Millennials to connect in-store.

Key Development: Retail is being transformed via digital interactive experiences.

January: Virtual reality retail hits London

Fashion designer Gareth Pugh presents his work through virtual reality headset Oculus Rift at department store Selfridges. The Monolith installation was played in a small, sound-proofed chamber inside the store.

Key Development: The experience demonstrates how retailers can connect with consumers artfully and emotionally, even in very small spaces.

February: The ICA takes up residence in Dover Street Market

Dover Street Market invites the ICA back into its old home for an eight-week, six-floor takeover.

Key Development: The collaboration is a great example of symbiotic space-sharing that turns shopping into a learning experience.

March: IBM sells cognitive cuisine

At South by Southwest Interactive, IBM teams up with New York’s Institute of Culinary Education to present food designed by machines.

A computer deciphers existing recipes to understand which flavours and techniques are tastiest. It then combines ingredients into millions of novel combinations and dishes.

Key Development: The possibilities for computational creativity being used in retail are endless.

October: Diesel brings architecture to life

Diesel opens its Rome flagship store with an immersive digital installation. The POSTroma piece visualises data about the city through morphing projections and is sensitive to social media.

Key Development: The project points to a move towards stimulating and interactive retail environments.

February: Nike launches its own original web series

As part of an effort to reach Millennial women, Nike launched an original eight-part web series that follows the lives of Margot and Lily – two sisters on a quest for fitness and friendship. A short workout video lead by Lily complements each video and can be shopped via the brand’s weekly newsletter.

Key Development: As the boundaries between content and commerce continue to blur, retailers are creating shoppable native content to engage and entertain consumers.

March: Samsung’s latest venue provides visitors with a cultural rather than retail experience

837 is not a store, according to Samsung, but a digital playground. Located in New York’s Meatpacking district, the building, designed by creative studio Wonderwall, features a virtual reality tunnel, recording studio, three-storey video screen and dedicated digital art gallery. A next-generation kitchen and living room will be used to demonstrate the future of the smart home.

Key Development: Retail stores are being re-imagined as fully immersive cultural centres and brand embassies.

April: Kit and Ace opens pop-up stores in luxury hotels in seven major cities

Kit and Ace is inviting guests at luxury hotels in cities including London, New York and Melbourne to shop for its collection from the comfort of their hotel foyer. In London, the Tom Dixon-designed Mondrian hotel hosted the Carry-on pop-up for one week in April, while in Chicago, guests at Soho House were invited to add some Technical Cashmere to their luggage.

Key Development: Hotels are increasingly used by mid-market brands to offer intimate collection previews and try-ons to globe-trotting travellers.

May: The North Face announces its first Mountain Festival

The idea for a Mountain Festival grew from the success of the brand’s 2015 event The NightRay Outdoor Festival. The retailer says it is not using the event as a way to sell merchandise, but for marketing purposes and to generate buzz on social media, helping it to track its reach and engagement online.

Key Development: Retailers are creating festivals that enable consumers to experience their products without being pressured to buy them, and using the events to gather data and generate content.

June: Nendo completes its most ambitious retail space to date in the Thai capital

Siam Discovery is a new flagship store from the Siam Piwat retail group that focuses on brand experience. The space is divided into several distinct areas, including a digital laboratory, creative laboratory and play laboratory. This identity is further reflected in design details such as beakers and molecular structures. The concept store will house leading brands alongside more experimental offerings from artists.

Key Development: In the digital age, physical retail is no longer just about selling products, but about offering consumers opportunities to discover and express themselves in a brand environment.

July: The new Sonos flagship store challenges retail conventions by encouraging customers to put their feet up

Customers are invited to experience the Sonos suite of products in a more personal setting and encouraged to take their time. With its team of interior designers Sonos created seven rooms, including a kitchen, living room and study, giving customers a sense of how its speakers will look and sound in their own homes.

Key Development: Retailers are creating home-like environments in-store to offer consumers more realistic contexts in which to trial their products.

August: Everlane’s new retail concept takes a no-frills approach

The new Everlane Fit Studio is heavily influenced by the technological efficiencies afforded by Silicon Valley. Rather than aggressive shop assistants, shoppers are greeted by a discreet concierge who takes their bags and payment details. Clothing sizes are displayed on birch plywood racks so that customers can shop independently. The store’s up-front check-in system reduces the final check-out time to 30 seconds, according to Everlane.

Key Development: Retailers are combining the seamlessness of online shopping with the sense of discovery that only physical stores can provide.

September: West Elm launches a range of boutique hotels to enable consumers to experience its products before they buy

The company has collaborated with DDK to open a range of boutique hotels. Five locations have been announced for 2018. The collaboration taps into the sharing economy, with each hotel reflecting the craft, cuisine and culture of its respective neighbourhood. Guests can purchase items from the West Elm collection at check-out, pushing the boundaries of the try-before-you-buy model.

Key Development: Homeware brands are increasingly opening hospitality businesses as a means of offering consumers more immersive ways to try their products.

October: Hermès is increasing its reach with a new retail space in Nordstrom’s flagship department store

The pop-up shop is designed to appeal to a younger demographic. Unlike Hermès’ usual stores, where the products are housed in glass showcases, the emphasis in the pop-up shop is on touch. The focus at Nordstrom Welcome Hermès is on all things tactile, encouraging consumers to feel the luxurious nature of the materials before they buy.

Key Development: Luxury brands are altering their traditionally reserved retail ethos in order to appeal to a growing group of affluent young Millennials.