Androgyny: Gender-Neutral Retail – Does it Have a Future? (3)

Influence on Store Design

Retailers will be watching Agender closely to see if Selfridges in some small way adopts genderless space after the three-month trial is over, but there is no doubt the retailer has tapped into an idea and behaviour that is manifesting itself in other ways in store design.

“The influence of a more open attitude is coming through,” says Dalziel. “In the last year our work for KappAhl in Scandinavia has created a more fluid plan, where shoppers flow from space to space, crossing between the gender divide without consciously doing it. This brand sells 50% of its menswear to women buying for men so the intertwining of the offer is perfectly natural and appropriate.”

It is a trend taking place across markets, with sight lines being cleaned up around the floor area and space being de-cluttered to the point of sparseness, such as at Hobbs’ London flagship.

In smaller-scale boutiques and in lifestyle offers the demarcation relaxes tremendously, notes Dalziel. “Spaces are typically more intimate, customers more engaged, more willing to browse, and navigation more intuitive. In these niche locations gender barriers and stereotypes can break down, such as a brand boutique like James Perse in Manhattan and Los Angeles.”

It is this more open way to shop and more flexible approach to customer boundaries that will resonate most with mainstream retailers as they look to deepen engagement with customers. The change in consumer attitude is a permanent shift and retailers that embrace an ‘everyone is welcome’ approach that enables discovery find themselves aligned with new consumer expectations.

 

Reference: Wgsn.com. (2015). Gender-Neutral Retail – Does it Have a Future?. [online] Available at: https://www.wgsn.com/content/board_viewer/#/56938/page/1 [Accessed 25 Nov. 2016].