Modern luxury retail is much more than just shopping. Customers are demanding more, not only from a retailer's online presence but the physical spaces that it offers. The keyword concerning these environments is certainly "experience," which has been at the center of FLANNELS' new direction, cemented in its FW22 campaign titled "Welcome To New Luxury."
Those of you that have kept your feet firmly planted on physical footfalls up and down the high streets of the UK's major cities will be all too familiar with FLANNELS. Founded in 1976, the store is undoubtedly one of the crowning jewels of British retail, with 45 physical stores across the country.
Since its acquisition by the Fraser Group in 2017, it's slowly transformed to bring it in line with the tailored luxury experiences afforded by its competitors.
Crafting an immersive physical retail experience has become a high priority for luxury retailers and brands alike, especially following global lockdowns as customers flock back to the streets. Large, well-lit spaces with strong stock options have been enough in the past, but now, consumers demand more, and the FLANNELS Liverpool store that we visited earlier this summer is a testament to that.
Beyond the bounds of physical spaces that you find yourself struggling to leave, the visual experience of campaigns is just important – and the arrival of the "Welcome To New Luxury" campaign exemplifies this, marking a strong elevation of FLANNELS' visual style.
Digging its heels into its Northern roots, FLANNELS called on Crowns & Owls to craft the campaign's visual treatment. The team best known for their work with groundbreaking UK artists like Skepta and Slowthai set sights on the Northern Soul subcultural movement to depict a very personal perception of "New Luxury."
In the UK, London has long been regarded as the center point of luxury fashion – think Dover Street Market, Selfridges – which is a perception that is slowly shifting, with brands like FLANNELS at the core of that movement.
All of the best of modern luxury across both menswear and womenswear (available to shop online or within one of the FLANNELS physical retail spaces) is accounted for within the campaign, spotlighting the likes of Prada, Stone Island, Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford, AMIRI, and plenty more.
