End Of Year Report 2025

Which were the most outstanding new stores of 2025? We asked store design expert, John Ryan, Managing Director, Newstores, for his annual selection of the very best from around the world.

Inspirational, efficient, experiential, different. Choosing the best stores of 2025 is not easy. As in most years, the canvas is broad. What is notable, however, is that perhaps rather more than in other years of the decade so far, a number of large, and very large stores have opened and, equally interestingly, a number of these are in towns and city centre, rather than on the metropolitan fringe.

The stores that follow are not arranged in any particular order. Instead, they have been selected on the basis that they are outstanding both in their market and for the simple fact that they have proved successful in doing what all good shops should: make shoppers shop.

Aritizia, the Flatiron district, Manhattan, NYC

Canadian fashion retailer Aritzia opened a store in New York’s Flatiron district in November that has all the architectural hallmarks of this part of the Big Apple, from cast iron fluted pillars to a balustraded atrium at the heart of the interior. The store therefore starts with an inherent advantage insofar as the shell is a thing of considerable grandeur, but it is to Aritzia’s credit that it has improved on the raw material. Whether it’s the greenery-draped balustrades, the low-rise mid-shop display equipment allowing views from front to back, or the subtly diffused lighting, this is impressive. Anybody who has been to the nearby Crate & Barrel flagship will recognise the design handwriting.  

Rapha Clubhouse – Shanghai

Upscale cyclewear brand Rapha has been opening “Clubhouses” across the globe since 2012, when it welcomed two-wheeled warriors into its first, just around the corner from London’s Piccadilly. Now it has opened an outpost in Shanghai, its first in China. Located in the city’s historic Hengshan-Fuxing Road, this is about bringing together like-minded individuals in an environment that will encourage coffee drinking and cycle chat, as much as buying a new jacket, pair of gloves or leggings. The coffee bar is in the middle of things and although the term is occasionally abused in retail, this really is a store that encourages a sense of ‘community’.  

Waitrose – Newbury

Newbury, a town in Berkshire, in southern England, might seem an unlikely location for a showstopping supermarket, but the 27,000 sq ft store does something that others do not (or at least not that well): it combines digital with IRL service. The store is an experiment for Waitrose, with everything from screens that form part of its food displays, to manned counters and staff on hand to advise on the many recipes that seem to be available at every turn. For those entering the store with a shopping list and an eye on price (helped by the shelf-edge price labels), the likelihood is that they will emerge with rather more than anticipated, such is this interior’s ability to seduce and persuade visitors to try something new.

Marks & Spencer – Cabot Circus, Bristol

The Cabot Circus shopping centre is in the heart of Bristol, a city from which M&S has been signally absent for some years other than in Cribbs Causeway, an edge-of-town shopping centre. Now it is back and at 80,000 sq ft, trading from three floors, it is the largest branch that the retailer has opened during the course of 2025. It offers clothing, home, beauty and food, but what sets this one apart is the manner in which the various departments function almost as standalone shop-in-shops. Beauty, in particular, is notable in this respect, with its own overhead canopy (the same has been done with the Home area) meaning that this could be a store of bits. Yet it functions as a whole. A true mono-brand department store.    

Zara – Calle Serrano, Madrid

Choosing an outstanding branch of Zara is a tough call, so slick is the combination of store design and architecture that characterises this part of the Inditex group. Yet following a store-wide makeover, the five-floor, 26,000 sq ft branch on Madrid’s Calle Serrano comes out on top, largely thanks to “El Apartamento” on the firth floor. This is a 4,300 sq ft space which has the feeling of a very upscale loft dwelling. Zara has used it to provide the setting for a more premium version of its home range and for those in search of better-end furniture and homewares, this looks a good bet, even if Zara is about affordability, among other things. 

RH – Champs-Élysées, Paris

Situated at the opposite end of Paris Champs-Élysées from the Arc de Triomphe, Europe’s    second outpost from RH (aka Restoration Hardware) takes over the premises formerly occupied by Abercrombie & Fitch. By any standards this is a flagship, aided by a building that looks uncannily like a piece of grand, early 19th century French architecture, yet which is fact a relatively recent structure. All traces of the A&F dark wood and moodiness are gone and in their place is an interior in which staircases created along ‘Belle Epoque’ lines, using patterned cast iron, cross a central void. None of this is cheap, but on the other hand, visitors to this one will probably not be short of funds.

Country Road, Brisbane

Australian fashion and home retailer Country Road has taken an early 20th century neoclassical banking hall close to the river in Brisbane and turned it into a store in which long sightlines, a lot of marble and views of both floors from the entrance lend a mass market proposition the sense of a better-end affair. This is a store that succeeds in transforming thoughts about what Country Road is about and is part of a more general makeover that many branches have been receiving during the course of 2025, all of them aimed at shifting perceptions. As an example of the trend that sees the mid-market knocking on the door of designerland, this is about as good as it gets.   

Ikea City, Oxford Circus, London

At 62,000 sq ft, the three floor (one of which is, in effect a smallish atrium leading to the other levels) Ikea City at Oxford Circus is a very large undertaking by local standards, yet it is probably less than 20% of the size of even a small full-size branch from the Scandi giant. Couple this with the fact that two of three of the floors are below street level and Ikea has succeeded in creating a city centre store that is a world away from what it normally does and which has a very carefully considered product range, aimed at those who will buy carry-outs, rather than flat-pack parcels. All this and meatballs. It has been very busy since it opened in March.

Spinneys, KAFD, Riyadh

Spinneys is based in Dubai and has been around since 1924, but lately many of its stores have the feeling of a Waitrose (and a lot of Waitrose products) about it, even though it is quite independent of the Bracknell-based grocer. It entered Saudi Arabia in 2024 and the branch in Riyadh’s KAFD (the King Abdullah Financial District) is perfectly suited to those working in the area, for whom quality is a central tenet. In-store this translates as a very up-market market style of merchandising along with multiple serviced counters, overhead wooden rafts and a very heavy emphasis on ‘fresh’. In a country where extreme aridity is the starting point, this is an oasis of food store design and product. Lush.  

On, Seoul

With a freestanding sculpture of shoelaces forming the word “On” at its entrance, the branch of the Swiss running brand that is a shop-in-shop in Seoul’s Hyundai department store shines out like a beacon. This is a retailer and brand that has honed its act to the point where a minimalist interior has about it the feel of a design-led proposition, in keeping with the running shoes and garments that form its offer. There is another On branch in the South Korean capital, but as an example of a shop-in-shop it is interesting to see the way in which being located in a department store in no way diminishes the impact of a very well-designed interior.   

Newstores delivers daily updates on new store designs and formats from around the world. For more information go to: www.newstores.co.uk