When Julia Goddard started as Harvey Nichols CEO in the summer of 2024, the store’s windows were all boxed in. A design choice made in the 1990s as an attempt to create space for visual merchandising displays, which hasn’t aged very well because it’s starved the space of light.
It’s a fitting representation of the post-pandemic years for the Knightsbridge retailer, which posted a pre-tax loss of £35.3 million in 2024, on top of £21.2 million in losses the year prior. And a far cry from the glamour of the 1990s, when the store kept appearing as a third character in the now-legendary British TV show Absolutely Fabulous and its top floor was a haunt for personalities like Princess Diana, Kate Moss and Marc Jacobs. (Former Harvey Nichols creative director Mary Portas recently detailed this period in her book I Shop, Therefore I Am: The 90s, Harvey Nicks — and Me, which you should read.)
But that’s all in the past — the good, the bad and the boxed-in windows. Goddard is now opening it all up, literally and figuratively, across the store’s five floors. “We all want light, you know?” she says pointedly. “The whole idea is to invite the customer in. Give the store a point of view and restore its strong position in the city, which has been somewhat lost in the past few years.”
The renovation
Goddard plans to do that by way of a renovation, which started this summer and is meant to be completed by 6 November. For the renovation, Goddard says she raised funds from the Poon family, who own Harvey Nichols. “The first thing that we wanted to do was invest in Knightsbridge, which is the flagship,” she explains.
The first phase of the renovation is the ground floor, which has been reimagined as an ever-changing concept space that is rooted in jewellery and other lifestyle products, such as whimsical homeware and books. “We are creating a store for locals, and what that means for us is, if you live in the area, you want to come in every week and find something different,” says Goddard. “They want something other people don’t have.”
British artist Gary Card is responsible for the totem-like sculpture that greets customers as they enter the store, while architecture studio Sybarite created concrete-topped tables that are on wheels so they can easily be moved around. Inventory is being refreshed as well, with around 60 brands being added across categories by the end of the year. “We want to change the visual merchandising every week,” says Goddard. The floor is almost complete by the time I visit (save for a Kuro Coffee that is being installed in the back and an eyewear space) and ready to host its first-ever exhibition: a curation of chairs by Brigitta Spinocchia Freund, in collaboration with PAD London, called ‘Take a Seat’.
The fashion floors are in varying stages of completion, though I am promised everything will be done by early November. The first floor is dedicated to international designers featuring bestseller brands like Khaite, Chloé and Margiela. The second and third floors focus on a new wardrobing concept, as well as denim, lingerie and swimwear, with spots of accessories, shoes and some homeware. The fourth floor will be complete in early ’26 and is dedicated to lifestyle. Besides anchor brands like Skims, it will host a wellness space offering treatments like lymphatic drainage and a Pilates studio.
Finally, the fifth floor is Harvey Nichols’s hospitality play, boasting a rather iconic, elliptical dome ceiling. It is here that Jacobs used to host his legendary parties, and while Goddard cannot reveal the exact plans for it just yet, I am told there will still be a bar — and, more excitingly, the store will still hold its 3am events license.
A boutique approach
We meet at the beginning of October, the week between fashion month’s end and Frieze London’s opening, when, if you work in fashion, things begin to appear a little fuzzy around the edges. But Goddard, who has also just come back from Paris and is clutching a massive cup of coffee, seems ready to cross the finish line — likely buoyed by her fashion week interactions. “People were treating us differently now compared to last season. They can see that we are delivering in defining a clear point of view,” she tells me.
The sharpening of that point of view has been ruthlessly practical since Goddard took office. The new iteration of the store will have no kids’ space or foodhall, and while there is a men’s allocation in the lower ground, the CEO is honing in on attracting women over 35 who are local to the area. “I don’t want to go after the young customer, because Sephora is doing that and Selfridges is doing that. It’s also hard to attract an international customer right now because of the tax free,” she explains.
Goddard continues: “When you try to cater to everybody, you lose the identity and you lose the focus. Eventually, you lose the customer. I want to go after this woman who is 35-plus and has her own money. She’s not a tourist; she’s not buying Harvey Nichols shortbread for tea at home. She’ll buy that from her local baker.”
Goddard is using the store’s small size, at approximately 220,000 square feet, to her advantage (for scale, Harrods across the road sprawls over 1.1 million square feet). “We are really a boutique, so we want to be able to offer an assortment that is a little more surprising than other department stores,” she notes. “We don’t have many concessions, so our customers can move between brands and peruse. We want the store to sell to you, not the brand. We want the team to be able to pull a selection of knits, or gowns for you to choose from, without you having to pay extra for private shopping.”
Women buying for women
To help her do that, Goddard has also spearheaded a pretty thorough team restructure, starting with the recruitment of former British Vogue editor Kate Phelan as creative director and Kate Benson (formerly of Net-a-porter, and Goddard’s sister) as chief merchant. A fresh operations team has also been put in place, as well as a whole new retail team led by vice president of retail Nino Mzhavia, whose CV lists retail roles at the likes of Saint Laurent, Louis Vuitton, Chloé and Alexander McQueen.
Goddard herself comes from McQueen, where she spent 14 years, most recently as president of EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa). “I feel like when there’s a woman designer, the clothes often fit better because she understands the customer’s needs better. I saw that working with Sarah [Burton] at McQueen,” she muses, after I bring up the age-old conversation surrounding the lack of women helming the world’s biggest luxury brands.
It follows then, that women might also have a better sense when it comes to buying clothes for women. “It’s exactly what we are saying,” agrees Goddard. “Let’s build a store for us. I think it’s much better to focus on something that we know is tangibly there. I live in Notting Hill, and I see the customer every day. They’re still consuming, but they’re doing it in different ways — they won’t buy a big chocolate bar, but they will buy a beautiful leather jacket and a great knit once or twice a year, because they want to look good while dropping their kids to school and rushing off to the office. So it’s about us understanding fundamentally how our customer is consuming, what categories they are investing in and then building a store around that.”
She adds: “I also spent a lot of time talking to the customer, in think tanks, or just straight up inside the store and outside. And the feedback is overwhelmingly consistent: they have those bags already — they have those status signifiers. What they need help with, is in showing their own style. They feel like the shopping offer in London is relatively homogenised — the same streets, the same brands. The boutique offer isn’t as strong as it once was either. Matches is gone, and that was a huge resource for the local customer. We feel that we can fill that gap.”
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