Learning from biba and topshop

Biba was an iconic British fashion and lifestyle brand that arguably defined the look and feel of the 1960s and 1970s fashion scene in Britain and far beyond. So did Topshop in the 1990s and especially the 2000s. Both brands have had a seismic paradigm shift in the retail landscape - creating shopping trends we take for granted today but that were avant garde, even blasphemous back then.

Iconic retail brands like Biba or Topshop (or even Abercrombie and Fitch) went against the common retail wisdom of their time, and they tore out the rule book of “what the market wanted” by focusing their efforts on their target consumers, not what what their competitors were doing. Anchored by fantastic design, Biba and Topshop analysed their consumers thoroughly and created worlds with vehement emotional resonance that spoke to their consumers, not typical shops. This allowed Biba and Topshop to innovate and to define the market not follow it. They both were resounding successes.

Property development is arguably retail on a much larger scale, selling and letting space to potential consumers. A thorough knowledge of the target consumer and great design is what makes developers appeal to potential tenants and stand out, not following “what the market wants”.