When a new store opens, it is usually quite easy to spot the chief executive. He’s the one around whom large numbers of suits are clustered, soaking up the praise for the way things look and keeping the staff on their toes.

Given this, it was refreshing to see Next chief executive Simon Wolfson eschewing this approach in favour of carrying out a detailed inspection as part of his visit to the gleaming new 44,000 sq ft store in Meadowhall that opened this morning.

While this may be a very good-looking shop with hardly a garment out of place, it did not prevent Wolfson from conducting a progress around the two floors in the company of David Dalziel, creative director of Dalziel + Pow, the consultancy responsible for what was on show.

Both men seemed to be vying with each other to find fault in what looked, to the uninformed eye, like an almost seamlessly executed store fit-out.

And Wolfson had reason to be pleased with what he saw. The outlet has everything from mirrored-sided unitry to a crystal-ball chandelier suspended above the escalator in the dramatic central atrium.

The store will also act as a template for a more general revamping of the chain, which has suffered in recent years from consumers becoming disenchanted with somewhat lacklustre store-fits.

Wolfson commented that the£140 per sq ft, cost of refurbishing a store to this standard will be no greater than any other, once the initial costs of creating prototype pieces of mid-floor equipment have been overcome. “I think this sets the standard for other shops,” he said.

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