Harvey Nichols set to axe homewares

Commercial director Patrick Hanley said that homewares – located on the store’s fourth floor – had not performed as expected and that as a fashion-focused store, the category was an inappropriate part of the shop’s collections.

As well as the homewares floor, the eight-floor store has three floors devoted to womenswear, two to menswear, a beauty and accessories floors as well as a food market and restaurant at the top of the shop.

The Knightsbridge store is the only branch in the retailer’s seven-strong UK and Ireland store portfolio to have a substantial homewares offer, which has been in the store for more than 20 years and includes brands such as Cath Kidston, Villeroy & Boch and Bed by Conran.

The changeover of the floor will not take place until February 2010, but the job of remodelling the department has already been put out to tender, said Hanley.

Robert Clark, senior partner at Retail Knowledge Bank, said: “Homewares is incredibly competitive these days and you do tend to associate Harvey Nichols with fashion.” He added: “Fortnum & Mason took homewares out, except for some of the bathroom merchandise, a few years ago, so it does make sense.”

As well as enabling the retailer to focus on fashion, the decision will distance it from rivals Harrods and Selfridges, both of which have much larger footprints and substantial homewares departments.

Harvey Nichols opened its seventh UK store last week, a 37,000 sq ft branch in Bristol’s Cabot Circus. Another international store will open in Jakarta this autumn. It is also understood that the department store retailer is in talks to open a second store in Istanbul on the city’s Asian side, following the success of its branch on the European side, which opened in 2006.