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welcome July/August ‘18 Welcome to a bumper combined issue of Retail Focus. As schools, colleges and universities break up for the summer holidays, we look at how a group of students on the MA Fashion Retail Management course at London College of Fashion recently responded to an industry brief set by design agency Checkland Kindleysides. Forming part of the Creative Retail Spaces Unit, the brief centred around non-transactional experiences and tasked the students with researching, defining and designing a third space in-store that would creatively articulate a chosen brand’s purpose and translate it across multiple touchpoints. You can read about the final proposals and the judges’ comments on pages 50-51. On the subject of non-transactional experiences, this month we look at the changing face of the beauty sector and discuss why more brands are opening standalone stores to tell their story. ‘A large proportion of high street retailers have struggled to transition from the mindset that a store is only a selling platform, when in fact we’re seeing service-led and a softer sell becoming key strategies to success,’ says Stefanie Dorfer, retail editor at innovation research and advisory company, Stylus. ‘This is where beauty is really coming to the fore.’ Find out more about this booming industry on pages 60-62. Also in this summer issue, we take a stroll down Old and New Bond Street to scope out the new store design concepts for Stella McCartney and Azzedine Alaïa, and head across to Harrods for a peek at the new Fine Watches department (pages 30-40). The latest Retail Exchange Podcast entitled ‘Mall Overhaul’ is now available to download, and you can also read what our senior industry thinkers had to say on the future of shopping centres on pages 55-57. Happy reading. (Oh, it’s good to be back!)
Gemma Balmford Editor
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Gemma Balmford
Lyndsey Dennis
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Social media For subscription enquiries please email: subscriptions@retailfocus.co Retail Focus is published 12 times a year by Retail Focus Promotions Ltd, Yeomans, Bassetts Lane, Woodham Walter, Maldon, Essex, CM9 6RZ. No part of Retail Focus may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form without permission. Please
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