John Lewis is to test a luxury fashion brands shopfit as part of its drive to more than triple sales from its luxury brands business.

The department store group will introduce a raft of top-end fashion brands to a differentiated area, initially in its menswear department.

The undisclosed brands will be of a similar positioning to its highest price-point collection Nicole Farhi – whose spring range features items at£1,500 – and brands with an international standing similar to the Mulberry accessories range.

The unnamed shopfit will be positioned above its newly launched Design Collective areas, which feature quirky middle to upmarket UK brands such as Scotch, Soda and Somi.

Director of buying Peter Ruis said: “In 2008, we will trial a premium shopfit for a luxury brand assortment. It will be like a very good independent. It will be modern and radical.”

He added: “As a business, we have a strategy to get 10 per cent of sales from luxury. At the moment, it is about 3 per cent.”

John Lewis clothing sales for the second half of the year to date are up 5.5 per cent year on year and growing faster than its home division. The fashion arm, which includes beauty, accounts for a third of John Lewis’s sales.

Ruis, who wants the retailer to have a 2 per cent share of the UK’s fashion market, has also restructured the buying team, splitting the branded womenswear offer between two buyers.

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