New Look unveils new look

THE entrance is huge. It is framed in giant strips of yellow translucent plastic that draw the eye to a sweeping silver staircase. Welcome to a radical new approach to fashion retailing.

It comes, appropriately, from New Look, the chain for younger women that has dramatically upped the stakes in the battle to be the next 'Big Thing' on the High Street.

In a move to appeal to notoriously hard-to-please young fashionistas, the chain has gambled £3 million on transforming a dingy first-floor office block into the most ambitious development on London's Oxford Street since the Selfridges revamp in 1999.

It is a big gamble. The store must take £12 million a year - that is £4 million more than its next largest outlet at the Lakeside shopping centre in Thurrock, Essex.

The development comes at a crucial time with Tom Singh, New Look's founder and largest shareholder, in talks with backers that could result in the 500-store chain going private.

There is speculation that chief executive Stephen Sunnucks will attempt a management buyout.

Sunnucks is bullish about the new store. 'This is the next big thing in fashion retailing,' he announced at the launch on Thursday.

Remarkably, the store breaks one of the biggest taboos in retailing - it sells from the first floor and there is no street-level trading space. The problem for New Look and Future Systems, its trendy architects, was persuading shoppers to climb to the shop floor.

The solution is the startling entrance with its massive silver staircase.

'We discounted the idea of escalators because they would be too narrow and wouldn't get people into the store quickly enough,' said Sunnucks. 'This solution is quite a statement - a sort of flag in the ground as to what they can expect in the store.'

One of the most striking aspects of the warehousestyle 15,000 square foot emporium is a giant snake that winds around, leading shoppers' eyes to key areas.

The snake can be filled with coloured gels according to the time of year - red for sale time, glittery gold for Christmas - and helpfully comes close enough to the floor in places to make seating.

Sunnucks, working with development director Carl McPhail, came up with a novel idea on how to solve the problem of boosting 'basket size' - retail-speak for making people buy more.

The store has 25 trolleys similar to those at supermarkets, but of a more trendy shape and mounted on gliders rather than wheels.

Within minutes of the opening, they had all been snapped up and were soon being piled high with clothes.

Other innovations include buttons in the changing rooms to call staff and fast, supermarket-style checkouts.

Sunnucks said: 'We want people to spend time in the store, but not ages queueing at the checkout. That can ruin the whole experience.'