All of these rooms are manifestations of a love of fashion, jewelry and other tasteful goods, and already provide the answer to the question one almost thought needed asking: about the future of luxury stationary retail. It looks pink! Being locked up within your own four walls during the Corona lockdown seems to have aroused a great desire for excursions into the wish rooms of the nobility. If he talks to André Maeder, CEO of the KaDeWe group, he says that the time of luxury department stores has just begun, reinventing itself as a place of entertainment: “We are now 20% higher than 2019 with sales and therefore before the pandemic and with daily visitor numbers of 50,000 at KaDeWe we are almost back to the level of 2019, although currently there are still some tourists from Asia and guests from Russia.” Over the past six years, the KaDeWe Group has not only renovated and expanded its house in Berlin with 500 million euros, but also the Alsterhaus in Hamburg and the Oberpollinger in Munich. At first sight it may seem paradoxical: doesn’t the future belong to e-commerce? Online retailers have long known how unboxing an order can become a memorable experience, including a personalized thank you card with your name in elegant handwriting. However: this cannot replace the experience of the architectural space and its attractions.
Luxury shopping is about exclusive customer experiences
Holger Blecker is the managing director of the Breuninger houses. According to him, the task of a future-oriented retail space is to make customers the heart of the company: “They give us their time. We want to appreciate it and thus offer them extraordinary experiences: through personal advice in a welcoming and a unique mix of fashion and lifestyle, entertainment, gastronomy and services.” Luxury shopping isn’t just about the expensive bag – agrees André Maeder: “Sure, it’s the luxury product that I can buy. But it’s also luxury just to have a place where you can see beautiful things, experience something and meet people.”
This means that the luxury retail space of the future will have to maintain a balance between product offerings, places to linger, moments of grammar (architecture and interior design must also make a good impression on Instagram) and exclusivity in the sense of: things and experiences, that only exist here. Some German Prada boutiques, for example, now offer a made-to-order service that allows bags to be individually designed on site. Or exclusivity comes from daring ideas: we have already talked about the spiral escalator of KaDeWe, just as we could think of the amusing gimmicks that Jacquemus devises for his pop-up boutiques: popcorn machines, huge washing machines, tubes of toothpaste. Only those who were there really believe it. The boutique as a travel destination.
The highest form of exclusivity: private boutiques
However, the demand for unique experiences in the commercial space can also be taken to extremes. In recent months, a number of so-called private boutiques have opened everywhere, including Chanel, Gucci and Tiffany. Such super high-end flagship stores are not accessible to ordinary walk-in customers. Only VICs, the so-called Very Important Customers, are admitted by invitation and by appointment. Regular customers who leave six-figure amounts a year and more at the brand for a reliable amount of time receive the status. They are, if you will, the rich superfans. In the 400-square-meter Gucci private salon in Los Angeles, which opened on Melrose Place in April, the cheapest product is said to cost $40,000, the most expensive three million. In Paris you can also rent La Suite Dior, an exclusive apartment at 30 Avenue Montaigne, just renovated by the famous architect Peter Marino, in the heart of Dior, directly above the main boutique. The 25,000 euro overnight stay includes exclusive entry to the shopping paradise during working hours and after closing hours.
