Habitat has thrown open the doors at its first standalone store for a decade as owner Sainsbury’s ploughs £1.5m into growing its portfolio.

The homewares business has launched the 4,700 sq ft flagship as part of the ‘home hub’ within Westfield London’s £600m expansion.

The store, which will be closely followed by another new opening in Brighton in November, is the third-largest in Habitat’s portfolio, stocking more than 1,400 products including furniture, lighting, textiles and home accessories.

Habitat’s wider range of 4,500 SKUs can also be ordered for click and collect from the site.

The store itself features a 4m-high industrial framework entrance with three ‘Instagram square’ window displays.

An adaptable installation and events cube will host monthly customer workshops to bring an experiential feel to the shop.

Habitat boss Clare Askem said: “Working with Westfield London to create a major new homeware destination for London has been a hugely exciting project to be part of and we think a fitting location in which to launch our first standalone Habitat store for 10 years.

“As we evolve the Habitat brand, we’re conscious of catering for customers who increasingly want the choice of shopping in stores or online in a way that suits them.

“Alongside good digital growth we’ve seen a great reaction to our store format trials which allow customers to interact with our products in different retail environments.

“Westfield London will be our first large-format store to offer customers a new immersive Habitat shopping experience within a major shopping mall and is aimed at those that who want the convenience of different fashion, home and entertainment retailers in one easy to shop location.”