Yahoo News Exclusive first look: Harrods opens sparkling new outlet at Westfield London
Venture to the White City end of Westfield this weekend and you’ll discover a massive, shiny new store stuffed full of current season product all at a minimum 40 per cent off.
This is Harrods Outlet, the department store’s first discount concept.
Staffed by existing Harrods store staff, the 80,000 sq. foot store, which opened 11am on Friday July 3, takes two of the four floors (level 0 and 1) of a giant corner premises of Westfield Shepherd's Bush that until April belonged to Debenhams.
The light and airy whitewashed space, which Harrods has let for nine months, has been purpose built with two-metre social distancing in mind (it was designed before the rules changed, and they decided to stick with two metres) and this, much like the customers it will serve, gives the heavily discounted stock more room to breathe than if it were displayed in Harrods alongside next season’s collections.
Ridding the iconic Knightsbridge store of sale stock and sale shoppers has the added benefit of ensuring the flagship retains a civilised and serene shopping experience.
“We had to work out how do we deliver what all our clients want in a very specific way for them without driving crowds into the stores because that’s not a responsible thing to do,” Harrods’ Director of Home and Beauty, Annalise Fard, explains, as she gives me a guided tour of the space just an hour before its doors opened to the public on Friday morning.
The senior team at Harrods came up with the outlet idea just five weeks ago, and today the sparkling Westfield store opens its doors.
“We wanted to make sure that when the autumn/winter collections drops, which is now actually, we were able to celebrate that in the main store. Because for some of our clients that’s what they’re looking for, and we want them to be able to enjoy that in the most luxurious and beautiful and stress-free, safe environment in our Knightsbridge store.”
The Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd’s Bush is the second busiest in Europe - 31 million people visited it last year. And with a 300-strong queue outside two hours before its doors open, Harrods Outlet is clearly set to become a summer shopping destination. The impressive edit of 100 brands and 120,000 units of product on display spans womenswear, menswear, beauty, accessories, childrenswear and home, all at a minimum of 40 per cent off.
There are brands such as Balmain, Stella McCartney and Chloe in womenswear and Off-White, Rick Owens, and Thom Browne in menswear, as well as mega accessories from Tom Ford and Mulberry, many of which are 50 per cent off.
The beauty space on the ground floor boasts must-haves from brands such as Estee Lauder, Gucci Beauty, Chantecaille and Shiseido alongside ‘fragrances from Roja Parfums, Cartier and Bvlgari
After my ten-minute walkthrough I already have a lengthy mental shopping list of current season Zimmermann gowns, a Loewe raffia Puzzle bag, Missoni kaftans, a Ganni oversized collar blouse you can’t find anywhere online and the latest Roja Dove scent, all at 40 per cent off. It’s truly a bargain hunter’s paradise, and a dangerous place for anyone with a magpie eye.
“We are really lucky because we have been closed for over three months so this stock is brand new, fresh, never been seen,” explains Fard. “Actually a lot of it won’t even have ever hit the shop floor. The majority of it will have been represented online but not everything. So you’re getting brand new season at great reduced prices.”
The reaction from brands has, says Fard, been overwhelmingly positive: “The whole industry is facing the same challenges, whether that’s media or retail, the pandemic has been devastating for everybody. A lot of retailers have been in big negotiations to try and return that spring/summer stock, or cancel autumn/winter orders, and actually what we have been able to do is bring the stock in and then retail it for them."
Over the past year, Harrods has pioneered a number of brand concepts that will take the core business out of Knightsbridge for the first time. Its first standalone retail beauty concept, H Beauty, will kick into action with the first site set to open its doors in Lakeside in Essex on September 17, with a second to follow in Milton Keynes in February. The extension of Harrods personal shopping experience in Shanghai at The Residence is also set to launch later this year.
“We all need to be agile, we need to flex our business models and challenge ourselves with new ways of thinking to get through positively to the other side,” says Fard. “And that’s what we at Harrods are doing."
