The London department store, Harrods’ Toy Kingdom is designed to impress both children and parents. It won’t disappoint.

Selling toys is a tricky business. Are you selling to the parent or to the end user, the child? Ask any parent and they’ll say that they’re buying for their child. Perhaps this is the reason why edge-of-town sheds where toys, cheap and otherwise, are piled high, continue to exist. They’re simple, convenient and full of unhappy children being taken around sterile environments where, for the most part, they are not allowed to get anywhere near the toys.

These are shops that sell toys, but they’re probably not toyshops and there is a big difference. Harrods, by contrast, has long had a toyshop and for many years it’s been on the fourth floor of the Knightsbridge emporium – since 1994, in fact, making it one of the parts of the shop that was overdue a makeover. Harrods director of home David Miller says: “This was the one area that we hadn’t touched and, when you look at our customers, everybody shops the toy department.”

Kingdom come

Now it has had a complete revamp and the new department has just completed its third week of trading, having relocated to the third floor, grown in size by about 2,000 sq ft, to 26,000 sq ft, and been rechristened as the store’s ‘Toy Kingdom’.

Apart from any design or size difference, the immediate benefit of its new location is that the ceilings are higher. This has allowed Shed, the consultancy that worked on the area with Harrods, to go to town, creating something that will live up to the name that has been chosen. In its previous home on the fourth floor, apparently, merchandising the toyshop was a little akin to trying to conjure magic from an Anderson shelter or something similar.

Things have been different since July 14 and although Harrods has long boasted a toyshop, it now has a destination that will make it a real focus of pester power. And as Michael Ward, Harrods managing director, points out, the jazz-themed Montreux cafe has just opened next to the Toy Kingdom – in time for parents to have a relaxing break after entertaining their offspring.

Big things

Miller says that the brief to Shed was simple: “Create the best toyshop in the world.” And certainly, for children, the entrance to the new department has real wow. The department has been divided into a series of zones and the initial element that confronts the visitor is the ‘Big Top’. This is at the heart of the first room and takes the form of a carousel-like feature with a high-gloss red and white circular awning. Soft toys are arranged on the circular plinth beneath and it will be used, at weekends and busy times, as a stage for visiting children’s entertainers, whether kids’ TV presenters or perhaps children’s book authors.

Look to the left and a trial by sugar awaits children and parents. Welcome to Papabubble, a Barcelona-based business, where adults or kids can specify a flavour, shape, size and colour of sweet, from very small, cut-up sticks of rock to outsize lollipops. This might not sound impressive, but the Toy Kingdom is about seeing things in action, so shoppers can watch their confectionery being created while they wait. This is one of 20 Papabubble shop-in-shops worldwide and the first time it has had a presence in the UK.

More or less opposite there is an old-fashioned-style sweet shop, aka The Candy Store, complete with bonbons in large jars and, after that, it’s soft toys all the way. The floor is worth noting as well. Throughout the whole of the department it is new, consisting of a vast, slanted chequerboard-style piece of wooden marquetry in light and dark woods. This is certainly not a cheap option, but it does immediately serve to tell you that you’re in a non-standard toyshop.

And if there was any doubt about that, the next room dispels any misgivings. A series of trees – wooden ones, created from former trees and reshaped into a forest – forms the Enchanted Forest, an area aimed mainly at girls, enclosing loose-weave wooden pergolas that are home to shelves filled with a lot of pink and lavender-packaged toys.

Boys’ toys

This is a large space and once the shopper has left the forest, the view is of Wonderland. This comprises a large number of eau de nil-coloured, internally lit fixtures that extend out into the mid-shop from the perimeter.

At this point, the move has been made into a more masculine offer, with Airfix models, working model helicopters and radio-controlled cars being the order of the day.

Lower equipment has been placed along the length of the mid-floor, creating aisles either side. This is also home to one of the more expensive pieces that the Toy Kingdom boasts – a scale model, petrol-driven black Mercedes SEL, yours for a modest £6,995.

The progress though the kingdom continues into the next room, the Odyssey. The mood in this part of the department changes abruptly and the relatively high ambient light level of the previous rooms yields to a space that is essentially dark, where spotlights are used to showcase specific items and areas.

Toys of a scientific and constructive nature are on show with Lego and items from the Science Museum taking pride of place. The highlights of the area are the black half-hemispheres used as display plinths in the centre-floor. These break the floor up and  serve to illustrate at a glance the sort of thing you can expect if you inspect the perimeter.

Book people

Finally, it’s into the Reading Room, which features a large, brown wood circular shelving fixture that dominates the mid-floor and which is used both as a book display and seating area. It is to Harrods’ credit that it has devoted a large amount of space to the distinctly old-world preoccupation of reading books. And a modestly sized Harry Potter sculpture, surrounded by associated paraphernalia, shows that the world of children’s books is not dead.

A complete rethink of toys and the toyshop experience at Harrods, therefore, and the retailer has hardly missed a trick when it comes to tying things up with existing partners, such as Dixons, which has provided the bulk of the gaming offer.

A toyshop should be about creating a sense of awe and exploration if you’re a child. It should also involve parents watching their children enjoying what has been put in place. On this reckoning, this may not be the best toyshop in the world, that’s up for debate, but it would be among the candidates for a medal.

Store facts

Location Third floor, Harrods, Knightsbridge

Opened July 14

Size 26,000 sq ft

Interior Shed Design

Last toyshop refurbishment 1994