Retail Day
Retail Week, today
Core blimey
The opening of an Apple store never fails to amaze me. There is almost a cultish feel to the way the staff all stand by the door and applaud customers in, occasionally making weird howling noises like wild animals. All very odd but seems to work and its first store in the city was certainly drawing the crowds at the opening of the extension to Eldon Square in Newcastle this morning.
The problem with Apple is that it tends to take over a shopping centre opening, and so today the queue barriers where shoppers were waiting to get in were getting in the way of everyone else getting to the other shops in the extension. That was causing a little bit of friction, but minor and very temporary niggles aside this was a very good opening day and has brought some very great stores and new brands to the city.
Aside from Apple and Paperchase the extension is very fashion focussed and features a very good Debenhams store with particularly strong looking home and beauty areas, plus most of the Arcadia brands, River Island, New Look, Superdry, Republic, All Saints etc etc. Debs didn’t have a store in Newcastle before, which is extraordinary, and their retail director Nigel Palmer told me they’d been trying to get in for 15 years. They’ve arrived in style and were doing very well today.
Among the interesting things I saw was a new look for Miss Selfridge, which is rather tucked away on the upper floor of a store shared with Dorothy Perkins and Burton, but borrows more than a bit from Anthropologie. Ian Grabiner was there and looked pleased with the work, which he’s brought in David Dalziel from Dalziel & Pow for after his successful work for Topshop. Topshop and Topman share a good-looking store across the way, hampered only by the lengthy walk back upstairs from the Topman basement - there’s no up escalator.
The problem with extending shopping centres is it always shows up the weaknesses of the old part, and that’s certainly the case with Eldon Square. Its owner CSC is planning a rolling programme of smartening up the older parts of the centre and that’s certainly badly needed, as parts of it look dated and shabby. It’s always going to be a hard centre to manage though because of its sprawling nature. While on that subject, can anyone enlighten me as to why one part of it is called Chevy Chase?
I know this its sacrilege to say this to a Geordie, but I popped into Fenwicks and wasn’t over impressed. There was a really odd mix of merchandise by the main entrance and quite a lot of empty shelving, and a lot of the rest of the store looked pretty tired, like a John Lewis that hasn’t been done up in a long time. I know it’s Newcastle’s department store, but I got the sense the John Lewis across the way must be giving it a run for its money.
on Feb 16th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Ha! The name ‘Chevy Chase’ apparently derives from a hunt in the Cheviot Hills, in Northumberland - Wikipedia can tell you more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Chevy_Chase !
The mall is not, sadly, named after the well-known Hollywood actor
on Feb 17th, 2010 at 9:12 am
I had an idea you’d be able to solve that mystery for me Graham - cheers!
on Feb 17th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Great post - The Apple staff are almost always so preposterously bloody cool that it must be a conspiracy, with curious facial hair obligatory for the chaps!
Can’t knock them for a great store experience though; Bristol now has a store at Cabot Circus and Cribbs Causeway. The city one is certainly very fine to lark about in.