Desert Island Stores: Vince Gunn, chief executive of Harvey Jones
In this latest instalment of our Desert Island Stores series, Glynn Davis chats to Vince Gunn, chief executive of luxury kitchen retailer Harvey Jones.
The store you remember from childhood?
The store I remember from my childhood is the one from which I learned all about retail, which was my family Greengrocer & Florists business in the West End of Glasgow. My father had bought an old trading name called, ‘McDonald & Murdoch’ in the 1960s and as a family all of my siblings and I had to work in the shops. From around 11 years old I worked across all of it learning to buy at the fruit market (a colourful place full of characters and choice language!), packing vans, merchandising, stock rotation, serving customers and dealing with the Glasgow public, as well as generally ensuring that our three shops and wholesale business worked properly.
Outside of that, the other store I remember from my childhood was called Burtons Menswear, not the mass Burtons brand, but a unique high quality menswear brand on the corner of Buchanan Street and Gordon Street. It was the place to go for, at the time, the very best high quality brands for men. My mother was obsessed with it and I remember a particular fascination for ties. She bought so many of them for my father, and I was often taken along.
Never Miss a Retail Update!Most inspirational store to your career?
That’s very difficult to answer. I was very lucky to have led and worked on 12 concepts in my career, working with some talented people who taught me a lot about branding and how stores work. Two of those concepts won Retail Week ‘Store Design of the Year’. The Body Shop and the Lunn Poly (part of Thomson Travel Group, now TUI) out-of-town Superstore also won those awards and were therefore inspirational in that sense. However, I also loved our ’Internet café’ for Lunn Poly (Thomson Travel) which was put in six years before Broadband came along in 2000, so it was pretty far ahead of its time! Equally ahead of its time was our ‘web-enabled’ Mothercare Hammersmith High Street store, which was back in 2002 and enabled a 30,000 sq ft out-of-town store to be curated down to 6,000 sq ft, focusing on core categories and using the then available ’technology’ to drive innovation and effectively a click & collect-type concept.
External stores for me were, back in the day, Crate & Barrel in New York, which always seemed to have a really engaging and superbly presented range. Riviera Maison, in the Netherlands, is also pretty stunning. And, in clothing, I also used to love all things Ted Baker where I felt the original team that built Ted did an exceptional job. The Ted Baker shirt was our standard attire while we worked at The Body Shop, a then casual workplace, which was quite unusual.
Most frequently used store?
Luca Faloni. After the sad demise of Ted Baker I have been hunting for something special and believe this business seems to have a huge amount going for it.
The store you wished you’d created?
Back in the day I used to work at Marks & Spencer as a commercial manager, which included the Marble Arch store when it was the highest return per sq ft store in the world and a privilege to be part of and educated in. It was however, very beige and bland, despite it being a powerhouse. I would have loved an opportunity to create something special in that brand’s evolution. And I have to say hats off to the current team for building its fabulous food business to what it has now become and correcting its clothing offer. They really are on a roll and deserve further success.
Your overall favourite store?
At this point in time, it’s Luca Faloni. Its product quality is exceptional, range curation and brand management also spot on, and the service is fantastic. Back in the day, and mainly due to the nostalgia of the 1990s and working with Anita Roddick, it was The Body Shop. Not only in the UK, but internationally as well, as I was very fortunate to regularly travel across the world seeing the brand develop under some very bright and innovative (mad!) head franchisees. They took The Body Shop concept and made it work so well in stores across their respective countries. They were successful pioneers in taking a British brand across the globe.
The store you’d like to take to the desert island?
I guess it would have to be a food shop. Therefore, it’s the M&S Food Store. It’s impossible to walk in there and not buy something.
