DDi - September 2011 - (Page 8)

8 | From the Editor Something in the water elcome to the DDI Portfolio Awards issue, featuring what our readers have dubbed the best in retail design and retail stores for the year. Each summer, we send out an e-mail survey to our subscriber base, asking what you think to be the best, brightest and most innovative companies, firms and projects out there today. The results, as always, showcase the pulse of the industry, because they are rooted in the opinion of those who make this industry what it is. We thoroughly hope you enjoy seeing who you have selected as this year’s shining stars. But, in asking our readers who they thought of as the best of the best in retail today, we couldn’t help ourselves from asking which retailers you thought were falling behind the pack. The results are not that surprising, based on published sales forecasts: 1) Gap, 2) Sears/Kmart, 3) Banana Republic, 4) Best Buy and 5) Dillard’s. I am a fan of many of these brands, and am outright rooting for them to pull through. Some are launching new store designs and initiatives to win customers back (you’ll notice Gap and Old Navy do appear in this best-of issue here), while others are, simply put, struggling. The headlines regarding today’s consumer suddenly do not look so good. Confidence is down. Wallets are tightening up (unless you’re in the luxury sector, that is—those Prada, Gucci and Louis Vuitton wallets seem to be doing just fine). But for the rest of America, gas prices are fluctuating, and job growth is stagnant. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read the phrase “double-dip recession” in the past three months. Obviously, when consumer spending dries up, the news is often unfavorable for retail. We’ve already seen the demise of Borders and Blockbuster this year, both impacted by the changing nature of how consumers use technology. The news was sullen in the retail world, but not shocking. Clearly, 2011 has not gone exactly as planned. I don’t want to call the past summer a wake-up call for retail—that title goes to the past three years, W where we have endured the biggest, eye-opening, alarm-sounding wake-up call any of us could have imagined. The good news for our industry is that I’m hearing positive things from our community. Design firms are hiring. Retailers are renovating. They might not be building 300 new stores, but they are hard bent on making the 300 they’ve already got look and feel fantastic. Oftentimes as editor of a retail publication, I have to remove my industry hat when walking up to a retail store, and enter the space simply as a shopper. From my perspective, shopping has become a bit fun again. A recent trip to Southern California found me at Santa Monica Place, the new venue dubbed in this issue as “Best Shopping Center,” which is an exciting new take on the outdoor-meets-indoor lifestyle center. The new small-format Bloomingdale’s there (Best-Designed Store of the Year, page 48) is cooler than its pictures can illustrate—a beachy, unpretentious, fun take on the Bloomie’s shopping experience. (The miniature mannequins climbing phone polls and Ferris wheels are worth the trip alone!) Let’s not forget Giorgio Borruso Design, which takes home Design Firm of the Year, is also located on the West Coast, as is Apple, named this year’s Retailer of the Year. Apparently, they’ve got something in the water on that side of the country. I’ll drink to that. Alison Embrey Medina Executive Editor alison.medina@ddionline.com | September 2011 www.ddionline.com http://www.ddionline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of DDi - September 2011

DDi - September 2011
Table of Contents
From the Editor
From the Show Director
Newsworthy
Shopper Insights
Greentailing
Editor’s Choice
Portfolio Awards 2011
Retail Design Luminaries
Retail Design Influencers
Design Firms of the Year
Best Visual Merchandising Programs
Retailer of the Year
Best-Designed Stores of the Year
Retail Standouts
Calendar
Advertisers
Think Tank

DDi - September 2011