Luxury Retail and Digital Management, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3Concept and Design of a Luxury Boutique

The customer must simultaneously identify the brand worldwide, and still be surprised when entering a store.

–Christian Blanckaert¹

Luxury brands reinvented themselves the day they discovered they had to sell not only to distributors but also directly in their own stores. This led them to develop new skills, including store concept and design. We will examine this point, crucial for the sale of luxury goods, under four key headings:

• The concept of the boutique: the boutique has to, by its concept, interpret the vision of the brand. One has to understand the role of the brand's vision before looking at the specificities of store design.
• The design of the boutique: this is all about understanding both the layout of the store and the importance of its show windows.
• Visual merchandising is an art which luxury brands have mastered, because it allows customers to perceive the aesthetic specificities of the brand.
• The design of the e-commerce site: even more than for brick-and-mortar stores, the notion of design is essential to attract online clientele.

Relaunching a Brand: The Urgency for a New Concept of Boutiques

When Domenico De Sole became CEO of Gucci in May 1994, one of his first decisions was to redesign its boutiques:

In December 1994, within six weeks, all the stores around the world were ‘Milanised’, that is, redesigned, based on the model of the Milan store. Minor changes, inexpensive, but which had a major impact. ...