Celebrating Retail Design: Inside Fagerhult's Health & Beauty Retail Safari

With more than 30 years of experience spanning visual merchandising, store design, retail format development and customer experience, Phil has spent much of his career exploring how physical environments influence customer behaviour, brand perception and commercial success. Today, through his consultancy work and collaboration with Fagerhult, he helps retailers create spaces that engage, inspire and perform, making him an ideal guide for these immersive retail explorations.

The recent Health & Beauty Retail Safari saw participants spend an afternoon visiting 12 stores across London's West End. Rather than critiquing brands against a checklist, the safari created space for observation, discussion and inspiration, examining how retailers use layout, materials, merchandising and lighting to shape customer experiences.

 

Different Brands, Different Answers

Health and beauty proved a particularly interesting sector to explore because of the diversity of brands operating within it. "It's a really dynamic sector," says Phil. "You've got legacy brands alongside direct-to-consumer startups that have successfully transitioned into physical retail. That creates a really diverse environment."

For the retailers and designers attending, that diversity was evident throughout the safari. Across the stores, participants encountered very different approaches to customer experience, despite many brands ultimately selling similar categories of products.

By focusing on a single sector, the group could compare how brands interpreted space, atmosphere and product presentation in distinct ways. "You're able to look at what could ostensibly be a similar product type being presented through very different combinations of design, layout, materials and architecture," says Phil. "Ultimately, that respects the brand and creates a more immersive experience for the consumer."

The Power of Product Presentation

One of the standout examples came from Molton Brown's Regent Street flagship. The store uses ambient lighting to create a warm and welcoming atmosphere, with lighting also integrated directly into the shelving displays. "The thing about Molton Brown is that most bottles are clear, so customers often recognise and select products by colour," explains Phil. "What they've done by adding lighting into the shelving is almost illuminate the product from within."

Unlike many brands where colour sits on the packaging, Molton Brown's clear bottles showcase the product itself. The distinctive colours of the shower gels, hand washes and bath products become a visual shorthand for different fragrances and collections, helping customers quickly spot familiar favourites or explore new options.

The effect transforms the presentation of the products, amplifying the intensity of colour and helping customers navigate the range intuitively. "It almost creates this ethereal glow," he says. "They've not only lit the space, they've exploited the intensity of the colour of the product itself." For participants, it demonstrated how lighting can become part of the product experience rather than simply illuminating it.

Creating Atmosphere Through Design

Another memorable stop was Penhaligon's on Regent Street. For Phil, the store illustrated how lighting works most effectively when considered alongside every other element of the environment. "Penhaligon's felt like walking into someone's wonderful home," he says. 

Artwork, warm timber finishes, brass detailing, rich colours and discreet lighting combined to create a calm and highly immersive experience. "You suddenly realise that when you add all these things together and light them correctly, you feel very calm and very immersed in the environment," says Phil. "That's the power of good retail design underpinned by fantastic lighting solutions."

Rather than drawing attention to individual features, the design worked as a cohesive whole to reinforce the brand's identity.

One Brand, Two Very Different Stores

One of the most interesting discussions emerged from comparing two stores operated by the same retailer. Participants visited two Aesop locations situated only a short distance apart: one on Regent Street and another on Beak Street.

Despite sharing the same brand, the stores felt entirely different. The Regent Street location reflected the scale and character of its flagship surroundings, while the Beak Street store adopted a much simpler aesthetic more suited to its local context.

"What was really interesting was that the store design on Beak Street reflected Beak Street, and the store design on Regent Street reflected Regent Street," says Phil. This approach extended across the brand's wider portfolio. "If you go to Kensington it's completely different again. If you go to Islington it's different again."

For participants, it highlighted an increasingly sophisticated approach to retail design, where consistency comes from brand values and customer experience rather than identical store formats. "They're thinking about who's visiting the store," says Phil. "It doesn't really matter that every store isn't exactly the same. They reflect the consumer who's shopping in that location."

Looking Beyond the Store Interior

While much of the discussion focused on interiors, Phil encouraged participants to consider the customer experience before entering the store. "Standing outside a store is as important as being inside it," he says.

Storefronts, windows and exterior lighting all play a role in shaping expectations and attracting attention within a competitive retail environment. "It's what you spot when you're walking past," he explains. "The better the environment is, the more likely you are as a consumer to consider that space."

For retailers and designers alike, it served as a reminder that customer experience begins long before a purchase decision is made.

Celebrating Great Retail

A consistent theme throughout the safari was the desire to celebrate great retail design rather than critique it. That sense of celebration extended into the stores themselves. Ahead of the safari, the Fagerhult team spoke with the retailers they planned to visit. Phil says the response was overwhelmingly positive. “Pretty much every store said, ‘This is fantastic. Thank you so much. Yes, please come in,’’ he recalls.

For him, that reaction reflected something important about physical retail: when a store has been carefully designed and invested in, teams are often proud to share it. Their enthusiasm adds another layer to the experience, reinforcing the relationship between brand, environment and people.

Across the twelve stores, participants encountered a variety of approaches to lighting, layout, product presentation and customer engagement. While no two environments were the same, each demonstrated how considered design can shape the way customers experience a brand. "When you see some really good retail design, it creates fantastic ideation and fantastic creativity," adds Phil.

Explore how Fagerhult can support your next retail project — from store openings to refurbishments — by getting in touch with our team.

Coming soon: In a forthcoming profile feature, Phil D'Souza shares insights from more than 30 years in retail, exploring how store design, visual merchandising, customer experience and lighting have evolved, and what today's retailers can learn from creating environments that engage, inspire and perform.