Habitat should become more like its parent company Ikea in order to restore its fortunes, Habitat founder Sir Terence Conran said this week.

In an exclusive interview with Retail Week, Conran said that Ikea had stolen Habitat’s mantle of bringing high quality design to the mass market. “It could do a lot worse than to look at what Ikea has done out of town and try to do something similar on the high street,” he said.

Conran also accused Next – in whose creation he played a key role in the early 1980s – of having lost its focus on product. While he praised the development of its online and catalogue offers, he said: “I can’t say it stands out today. The product is not particular in any way.”

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