Take a Liberty

Reinventing an institution like the Liberty store is brave enough. But interfering with people's shopping habits at the same time seems like wilful meddling. However, the design and retail brains behind the new look Liberty in Regent Street have pulled off an impressive coup.

After a full year under wraps, the building is revealed this month, following a £9 million refurbishment. It is now a thoroughly stripped-back, rationalised, pure-white liner moored around the corner from the mock-Tudor battleship of Great Marlborough Street (the timber is the genuine article salvaged from a couple of 19th century men-o'-war). And shoppers are not only treated to some sparkling new spaces in which to buy their cosmetics and perfumes (ground floor), ladies' shoes and lingerie (first floor), gents' shoes, shirts and ties (lower ground), they are also being treated to a new style of retailing.

Instead of grouping products in clumps of brands, the displays are themed. There's even a 30m long wall display of 200 men's shirts of all brands, "shown in the phased colours of the spectrum", says Simon Stacey, creative partner of 20/20 Design, which carried out the display revamp. The belief is that Liberty shoppers are a creative and sophisticated lot, these are no label slaves, but instead they prefer to pick and choose to create their own look.

Throughout the refurbished store, goods are the stars of the show. Shoes are arranged on beautifully spot-lit plinths, items of lingerie appear in their own internally lit display cases and ties are laid out - all 2,000 of them - on exquisite red lacquer, hoop-end tables. "We've also reinvented the idea of the cosmetics hall," explains Stacey. "Right through the middle are 10 large 'play tables' with cosmetics, mirrors, brushes and tissues, where customers can try different products and experiment for themselves."

Beauty consultants are supposed to stay at bay until asked for help, but during the first couple of days after opening a couple of them looked as if they were itching to pounce.

The transformation of the store is conceived as a return to the design-centred ethos of Liberty founder Arthur Lasenby Liberty. "Ever since it opened in 1875, Liberty has always been interested in encouraging new talent, and so instead of relying on artistic movements of the past, the focus is now much more about good design in general. We see it as a contemporary aesthetic emporium," says Stacey.

Liberty was, after all, the first lifestyle store, at the cutting-edge of 19th century retailing, and its founder was an inspired shopkeeper offering irresistible goods in a home-from-home setting, with fireplaces in many of the rooms. That domestic edge emerges again, 21st century-style, in the Regent Street store. Exquisitely painted sideboards, velvet chaise longues, pony-skin upholstered chairs, twinkling modern chandeliers and 2m high Venetian glass mirrors are among the luxurious touches on the three floors.

Remodelling of the interior, carried out in conjunction with architects Landmark Retail, is hugely dramatic, especially since Regent House is a Grade II listed building.

The Regent Street annexe certainly had the better address but its miserable, stifling, disorienting interiors always left you feeling that you hadn't been to Liberty unless you'd seen the great mock-Tudor building with its huge oak-lined light wells and funny linen fold panelled lifts.

The new stripped-back interior is a breath of fresh air, now a destination in its own right but still hooked up to its neighbour by the first-floor bridge and a new connection at lower-ground level. Who could believe that the neo-Classical lean-to and wacky Tudor-style emporium were by the same team of architects, ET and ES Hall? And that they were built within a couple of years of each other: the Tudor House in 1924 followed by the neo-Classical Regent House in 1926. The five-year, phased refurbishment continues with works due to start next on the highly prized Tudor house emporium.