Three times larger
Harrods already had one of the largest “shoe stores” in the world, but it has tripled the size of its shoe department, making it the largest in the world. An astonishing number of 100,000 pairs of shoes (from large and smaller brands) are on sale in an area the size of 3 Olympic swimming pools.
Chanel, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik have their own boutique (there are 17 shop-in-shops in total), while ‘smaller gods’ and ‘designers to discover’ (like Nicholas Kirkwood, Charlotta Olympia, Sophia Webster or Rupert Sanderson) show their creations in luxurious showcases along the sides.
Like a five-star hotel
“Shoes are increasingly important in a woman’s look. That is why we have created an impressive destination to celebrate this”, Harrods’ Helen David said. The Harrods Shoe Heaven, at the fifth floor of the luxury department store, is decorated like an “opulent penthouse suite, not like a regular shoe store. We wanted to create some sort of five-star hotel.”
To get that vibe, a huge number of (mirror) glass, marble floors and loveseats were added to the design. “It is rich without being overly flashy, and it’s designed for trying on shoes“, Simon Rawlings (creative director of David Collins Studio) said.