Today we are talking about England and in particular about three places you should not miss under any circumstances, if you are visiting the English capital (take advantage of this, as long as you only need your ID card to enter the country) and visual merchandising is your passion. Don't be fooled by the notoriety of the brands: if these department store you haven't visited them in person, you don't really know them!
Harrods (87 - 135 Brompton Road)
The department store par excellence, founded in 1824 in the Knightsbridge area on a plot of over two hectares. Today it has 330 merchandise departments on seven floors and an army of 3,000 employees. Over the decades Harrods has increasingly raised the quality level of the goods on offer, moving from being a popular shopping destination to a temple of designer products. The visual merchandising of the interior fittings and shop windows is one of the benchmarks of the industry. Especially during the Christmas season, the special editions of Harrods' shop windows are a real attraction for customers, tourists and visual merchandisers from all over the world.
Selfridges (400 Oxford Street)
It is the second department store of Britain, with over 100 years of history under its belt and six floors dedicated entirely to shopping. From high-fashion labels to quality hi-fi, from designer furniture to accessories for would-be brides and grooms, at Selfridges it is possible to spend happy hours practising Londoners' favourite sport: shopping. Recently, the brand has adopted a minimalist style of communication, following the concept that in the Oxford street area, passers-by are already bombarded by too many visual stimuli and that Selfridges' shop windows should be a moment of sensory tranquillity that positively predisposes the customer towards the brand and the shopping experience. Of course, minimalism does not mean an absence of ideas or style, quite the contrary, and Selfridges' visual merchandising has the great merit of being able to stand out even without shouting.
Harvey Nichols (109 - 125 Knightsbridge)
Another temple of quality London shopping, it is spread over eight floors and offers beauty, fashion and design products. The fifth floor houses an exclusive food market with over 600 top-quality products and a vodka tasting room. The brands offered by Harvey Nichols range from Prada to Armani to Dior and Louis Vuitton. The shop windows are designed to surprise and attract customers to the shop. The extravagant, transgressive but refined style of Harvey Nichols is now recognised and appreciated by the millions of visitors who choose the English capital for shopping.
Sources: Visualmerchandiser.co.uk
