LONDON — With all the buzz around Old and New Bond streets, and the luxury groups’ battles to buy and lease the town’s top retail properties, it’s easy to forget about Burlington Arcade, the covered shopping thoroughfare that sits right near them, with stores selling luxury accessories from cashmere knitwear and Manolo Blahnik shoes to vintage Cartier watches.
But as the big brands stake their claim to the multimillion-pound properties on Old and New Bond streets, which are now among the most expensive retail strips in the world, the smaller, independent ones are making themselves at home in the arcade, jockeying for more square footage and refurbishing their units to appeal to the 4 million visitors each year.
The brands are eager to plant their flags because the arcade is evolving — finally — into the high-end hot spot that owners, the billionaire British property investors David and Simon Reuben, envisioned when they purchased the property in 2018 for a reported 300 million pounds.
While Burlington Arcade was always filled with nice shops, there never seemed to be a coherent vision, and brands would come and go after short periods. Trupti Shah, international commercial director at Reuben Brothers, has been trying to change that perception, and take it as far upmarket as she can.
“We’ve been treating Burlington Arcade like a department store, which none of the previous owners had done before. Our idea was always to connect the dots, create a destination, and be more than just a landlord. We want to preserve the history of the arcade, and restore all the independent luxury retailers,” she said.
Gladwell and Patterson, London’s oldest art gallery, just opened in the arcade.
The 19th century arcade was commissioned by Lord George Cavendish, whose family owned the neighboring Burlington House, now home to the Royal Academy of Arts. The arcade opened in 1819 as a high-end shopping destination and is still manned by the Beadles, the nation’s oldest police force, who ensure some of the old rules are maintained — no whistling, running, cycling or behaving “boisterously.”
The arcade spans 37,000 square feet, and each retail unit resembles a small townhouse with a basement, ground floor and two upper levels, for a total of 1,000 square feet. Overall, the mix is around 50 percent watches and jewelry with the rest coming from luxury accessories. The customers are around 70 percent tourists and 30 percent locals.
Although Shah declined to comment on rental prices, they’re understood to be in line with those on nearby Old Bond Street, which range from 2,500 pounds to 2,800 pounds a square foot for the prime area nearest to the shopfront.
The owners’ department store approach has been working, with sales at the cashmere knitwear brand N. Peal and Ladurée, purveyor of flavored macarons, both up 14 percent so far this year. Shah said the arcade is also turning footfall into sales and driving profits, with the average conversion rate 78 percent across all 47 retailers.
Stephen Webster’s No Regrets lounge in the basement of his shop at the arcade.
Jack Elliot Edwards
Shah has also been careful about the tenants. She has upped the threshold for entry-level prices to 350 to 500 pounds, and encouraged some brands — like Stephen Webster — to think about a hospitality offering, which is why the jeweler opened the No Regrets Lounge in the shop’s basement.
She sees Burlington Arcade as the ultimate destination for high-end accessories with a strong craftsmanship angle, and for wedding and honeymoon shopping. “You can buy your shoes at Manolo, engagement rings at any of the jewelers, and your luggage at Globetrotter,” she said.
Brands are eager to move in, and happy to wait for the right space to open up. For 60 percent of the brands — including Globetrotter, Bell & Ross, and Stephen Webster — their arcade store is their only physical presence in the U.K.
E. Marinella, the Neapolitan tiemaker which previously had a store on Maddox Street, waited three years for the right space in the arcade. It’s now located next to Noxy Coffee, which started out as a stand-alone cart in the arcade and now has its own shop with seating upstairs. Both sit across from Romi Topi, owner of the shoe-shine business who’s marking his 20-year anniversary this week.
Shah said that of the seven leases that expired this year — all from long-standing tenants — six have been renewed with long-term leases.
Le Café by Nicolas Rouzaud.
Upcoming arrivals include Mackintosh, which is taking a 1,100-square-foot space across four floors, later this year. Its sister brand, J&M Davidson, recently took over the largest single unit in the arcade, which measures 1,600 square feet. In June, Gladwell and Patterson, London’s oldest art gallery, opened in the arcade.
Other brands are in expansion mode.
Susannah Lovis, which specializes in vintage jewelry, and has been in the arcade nearly 30 years, has more than doubled its space to 1,100 square feet. Roja Dove and Azza Fahmy have more than doubled their respective spaces to 1,100 square feet.
N. Peal is marking its 90th anniversary later this year by doubling its space to 2,379 square feet by expanding to the unit next door, which was previously occupied by the Justerini & Brooks wine merchants. It will become the largest store that Burlington Arcade has ever had.
Come September, Vilebrequin will be renovating its store, which faces Piccadilly at the other end of the arcade from N. Peal. It will reopen in early November.
Shah has also been ramping up the hospitality offer.
Ladurée at Burlington Arcade.
She brought in the arcade’s first morning-to-early-evening food offer in Le Café by Nicolas Rouzaud, one of the top master pâtissiers in Europe, with his own space on Mount Street, next to The Connaught, and a short walk from the arcade.
It opened earlier this year and serves breakfast, brunch and lunch including a ham and egg brioche based on Rouzaud’s father’s recipe.
To mark Manolo Blahnik’s involvement in last year’s Marie Antoinette exhibition at the V&A, the brand hosted a dinner in the walkway of the arcade. The lavish crystal chandeliers are still hanging in the space. Other special events were linked to the Takashi Murakami 007 James Bond takeovers of the space.
Shah said her retail puzzle is almost finished. The only missing pieces are “luxury niche homeware brands. We love Lalique — it dominates the homeware offer in the arcade — but we’d love to see more brands,” she said.
