Waterford Crystal, Wedgwood and Royal Doulton, part of the luxury lifestyle company WWRD, have unveiled their new international retail concept – in the heart of London’s luxury department store Harrods. The retail strategy has been created by the WWRD design team in conjunction with retail experience design agency JudgeGill. It uses what JudgeGill describes as “a materials palette and merchandising technique that re-creates the ambience of fine dining to make the p
he product appear more tactile and encourage ‘handling’ and interaction with the product”.
The new Harrods department is the group’s largest international retail space to date and showcases a diversity of product, from dinner and stemware to luxury gifts and limited edition prestige pieces. It also includes a customer consultation area.
Ric Mather of JudgeGill, said: “We have created a coherent strategy and retail experience that is inclusive for all brands in the WWRD group’s broad portfolio. In the Harrods department, for example, key collections on display include this season’s new launches from Waterford and Wedgwood such as Alana Lime crystal gift, John Rocha’s modern Folio stemware and the vintage-style Cuckoo tea collection; which sit side-by-side with popular tailored classics from Jasper Conran and Vera Wang, the fabulously opulent Minton and handcrafted halo pieces from the Distinguished House of Wedgwood.”
Mather said the strategy has also been designed to work across a variety of environments and can be scaled up or down depending on the specifics of where it is being applied.
“The design solution makes the merchandise the hero and encourages consumers to handle the product – something that we feel is vital in today’s retail environment to engage and connect the customer.
“Attention to detail was given to all design elements, including lighting, fixtures and we ensured that the finish mirrored the premium quality of the products themselves.
“The space allows the visual merchandising and marketing teams to tell multiple product stories – from the drama of the crystal ranges and opulence of the fine dining products, to the everyday casual dining ranges. Additional creative elements aim to create ‘pauses’ for the consumer through the use of photography highlighting heritage product and the application of audio-visual media to tell ongoing stories around the brand’s craftsmanship and design innovation.”
The scheme will now be applied in a variety of formats including further high end retail destinations as well as mid-market store-in-store spaces.
Websites: www.waterford.co.uk www.wedgwood.com www.royaldoulton.com
www.judgegill.co.uk
