The fashion retailer’s sleek new interior is a move away from a footballers’ wives ambience. John Ryan visits the Galeries Lafayette shop and talks to boss Mike Shearwood about the changes.

Fashion retailer Karen Millen has been around since 1981 and from that time has grown into an organisation with the bulk of the store estate outside the UK.

The retailer has also been steadily slimming down its UK portfolio, to the point where it now has fewer than 90 stores in this country, while the overseas store count is nearly three times greater.

As well as morphing into a significant international retailer, over time it has become known on its home turf for the sort of premium offer that might be favoured by footballers’ wives. Or at least that is its reputation and it’s one that Mike Shearwood, Karen Millen chief executive, is determined to alter because it is more about perception than reality, he says.

He adds that the occasionally over-glitzy image surrounding the fascia is largely confined to the UK and that overseas it is positioned as a more “sophisticated offer” with an emphasis on quality and design. “Everything we do is developed and designed in-house. We don’t have buyers and we use the best fabrics and our customers overseas understand this,” he says.

Nevertheless, part of the Karen Millen image stems from the appearance of its shops, which have always had a mild element of flash about them that might not appeal to all customers.

Shearwood says that a “journey” has begun at Karen Millen, which will mean the stores gradually being toned down and made to appear less ostentatious than has been the case until now.

“The intellectual challenge for us is saying ‘how do we retain our customers as we accelerate the changes that we are looking to make?’” he says. Practically, the first evidence of the makeover that Karen Millen stores are set to undergo is on view in Paris at the retailer’s store in Galeries Lafayette.

The shop-in-shop is on the glamorous department store’s third floor and is in one of the few areas where there is a large amount of natural daylight, affording views over the rooftops of the City of Light.

According to Shearwood, what is on view is about “dumping the history and keeping the heritage”, as far as the 1,500 sq ft space is concerned. “We’ve changed everything. Internationally, Karen Millen is perceived as a ‘bridge’ brand and we want everything about our stores to be seen as luxury, except the price,” he says.

Considered change

Stand on the broad walkway that marks the approach to the Karen Millen shop and the large windows and the brand name are probably the first things that potential customers will see. The windows are curved and multi-paned, while the store name is picked out in white neon on a shop-long black overhead beam that marks the entrance. To the right of the name, and forming a kind of see-through wall in front of which two mannequins on plinths are positioned, there are floor-to-ceiling blue-white neon tubes. This is certainly opulent looking.

The floor itself is composed of dark wood, lending an air of quiet sophistication to the interior. It is different from the majority of Karen Millen stores, where semi-shiny terrazzo tiling tends to be the order of the day. Shearwood is at pains to point out the “lighter” fixturing and the move away from the font that was previously used to spell out the Karen Millen name.

In its place comes a “slimmer”, more delicate typeface, in keeping with the intended move towards a more chic
in-store ambience.

Move into the store and although this is recognisably a Karen Millen interior, almost everything has been toned down.

Shearwood draws attention to the cash desk, which in many branches features a series of bevelled mirrors along its front. High gloss black strips have replaced this and the effect is low key and generally more upmarket.

The same is true of the rest of the interior. The visual merchandising is about attention to detail and not being too obvious and the emphasis is more on the stock than the fixturing used to display it. Shearwood has employed designer Brinkworth to create the interior - the consultancy has worked on creating and fitting out hundreds of Karen Millen stores. It is clear that the change has been communicated and something different has been fashioned by Brinkworth, although it retains the essence of the brand.

Worth noting too is the perimeter, which is lightly merchandised, with stress placed on individual pieces, rather than overfilling the rails. This is perhaps as it should be - allowing for the fact that the top-priced garment on display is a fur-trimmed shawl-collar suede biker jacket at £1,220. This sounds a lot, but Shearwood observes that similar articles from other brands can cost up to £5,000.

Even so, this is a price level that falls into the ‘considered purchase’ category so care has to be taken to ensure
that shoppers have room to move and that what is on view is an edited collection, rather than a mass merchandising exercise.

Delivering exclusivity

The question is how will the customers react? “We are an artisan luxury business and we think we have the ability to democratise luxury,” says Shearwood. “We want our stores to be about making individual products that have an air of exclusivity. We do this by having very limited product runs of each item. You can deliver exclusivity through inaccessibility.”

And it seems to be working.

“It’s early days, but we’ve had a 25% sales uplift in this store [in terms of sales per sq ft],” says Shearwood. The “journey” that he refers to looks set to continue and he says that further change will be wrought if the Galeries Lafayette experiment continues to bear fruit.

Changing long-established notions about what a retail fascia and interior should look like is a delicate business and needs to be a process undertaken gradually.

Visit the Karen Millen head office, however, and there is an air of excitement about what will be done to the stores as the changes gather pace. Shearwood seems animated about what is being done. He has good reason to be so.

Karen Millen, Galeries Lafayette, Paris

Location 40, Boulevard Haussmann

Size 1,500 sq ft

Design Brinkworth

Ambience Restrained luxury