Habitat has opened its new look £1.5m flagship store in London‘s Tottenham Court Road. With its last major refurbishment in 2005, the 25,000sq ft store, Habitat‘s largest in the UK, has been completely re-designed by Habitat‘s in-house design team led by Creative Director, Polly Dickens, and Creative Manager, Graham Copeland. The brief was to create an immersive brand experience for customers, and includes digital access points to drive awareness of the recently upgraded habitat.co.uk.
Interactive touch screens throughout the store now link directly to habitat.co.uk to allow customers‘ access to product information and the full Habitat collection online including finish options and models not shown in store. Customers will also be able to browse branded editorial content including the popular #HabitatVoyeur campaign. A statement video wall at the entrance of the store also showcases Habitat‘s online content with in-house designed creatives, behind the scenes films and specially commissioned artworks.
On the shop floor, the ground level features a new mirrored showcase ‘pop up‘ area that will house interior design installations, events and customer workshops.
“We wanted to create a flagship that represents our brand today, demonstrating how significantly we‘ve moved Habitat on creatively over the last five years,” comments MD Clare Askem.
“The new store now truly reflects what we stand for, designed in-house by our London studio to embody our values of good, fun design that is unexpected and forward thinking. It‘s very different to the Habitat that you‘ve seen before and has been an opportunity to re-affirm our identity on Tottenham Court Road as a design brand. There are no gimmicks or distractions here – we‘re letting the designs speak for themselves – in terms of quality and price point – in a new store environment where simplicity is key. I think we‘ve really successfully brought together both online and offline strands of the business understanding how our customers are shopping today and we‘ve set a benchmark for how we plan to evolve the brand going forward combining offline and online retail. For me, Tottenham Court Road is the perfect embodiment of this future multi-channel vision and marks a really exciting new chapter in the Habitat story.”
