Store concepts and rollout
Nobody falls in love with boring.
Grow into your brand, not out of it.
We work beside your store team at the moments that matter: a new store a few months in, a concept that has stalled, the next format. Start with a day in two of your stores, then three weeks to a roadmap. We can stay on as long as it helps.
Book a Store WalkSee the roadmap
Start here if it’s a new store a few months in · a concept that has stalled · your next format · your first store abroad
- 200+
- Store environments across URBN’s brands, no two alike
- 20
- People in the studio team James was tasked with building and leading
- 56,000
- Square feet at Urban Outfitters, Herald Square
- 1st
- Anthropologie in Europe, Regent Street, from the studio
- 6
- Years as COO of an international retail real estate firm, after URBN
Career store work Anthropologie · Urban Outfitters · Free People · BHLDN · Terrain · White House Black Market · Chico’s · Soma
Beside your team
Your team is good. What outside eyes add.
Your team knows your brand better than anyone. We work beside them, and they stay in charge.
- Fresh eyes
- A team that walks its stores every week stops seeing them. We walk them at the times that matter and write down what has gone invisible.
- What other brands learned
- An inside team sees one brand up close. The URBN studio James was tasked with building and leading, and its team, designed more than 200 store environments across several brands. Then, as COO, James coordinated several brand expansions across the US, the UK and Europe.
- A bench and an outside voice
- Architects, engineers, lighting people and makers James has worked with over 27 years, brought in only where your team wants them. And a voice from outside the org chart to make the case for an idea to the people who decide.
From the insideURBN had an award‑winning in‑house studio, and it still brought in an outside team to imagine the store of the future. That store became Anthropologie & Co.
The problem
What works for three stores often breaks at thirty, if not sooner.
- CostThe fixtures and finishes that made the first store special cost too much to build fifty times.
- CopyNew stores open looking like a cheaper copy of the first.
- PartnersA new architect, permit office and contractor in every city, and nobody holding the standard.
Start here
Walk two stores first.
Then, in three weeks, what to keep, what to fix first and the next store to build.
It is for the fashion, jewellery and home brands people stretch for, with a strong team and a moment that matters: a new store a few months in, a concept that has stalled, the next format, or a new leader in their first year. Most of the time the work is surgical: keep what made you special, and fix what breaks between stores.
- One dayThe Store Walk.
One day in two of your stores, with you and your team. A written note within five working days: what fresh eyes saw.
- Three weeksThe Roadmap.
With your team at the table, we walk a sample of your stores, check what travels and leave you the roadmap: what to keep, what to fix first and what to build next.
- Staying onWe stay at your table.
As often as your team wants us: through the next store, the next format or the whole rollout. Or once a quarter, as Counsel.
The note and the roadmap are yours either way. If you go on to the three weeks, the walk counts as their first day, and before Week 1 we agree in writing which stores we walk, who sits at the table and what you get. How we work
See an example roadmap: what the three weeks leave you with. For your CEO or board: the offer on one page, in US Letter or A4 (PDF).
The mixtape
Every store a different track.
Same tape.
Pick a track
Bureau St. James mixtape
side A
side B
Selected work
Stores for Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, by URBN’s in‑house team.
Written up in Retail Week, Design Week, VMSD and DDI.
Sheet 01 · The URBN yearsSelected: 10
- 07
- 08
- 09
- 10
- 11
- 12
- Anthropologie, Dos LagosAn Anthropologie prototype in Corona, California, with a real garden in the middle of the store.With WORKac, 2007. AIA New York Design Award, 2008. Photo: Bruce Damonte
- Anthropologie & Co.A full prototype in a URBN warehouse in four weeks, by an outside team URBN commissioned. It led to Anthropologie & Co.; the Westport store opened in the old YMCA in 2017.
- Urban Outfitters, Herald SquareA 56,000 square foot flagship over three floors, by URBN’s in‑house team.
- Devon YardA mixed‑use development on Philadelphia’s Main Line, carried through approvals by URBN’s team.
Surprise at every turn.
Career work also includes BHLDN, UO’s Space Ninety 8 and Space 24 Twenty, and the Vetri Family of Restaurants.
The record
Retailer of the Year, the Design Week Hot 50 and six architecture and design honours, across more than 200 store environments.
- Retailer of the YearVMSD’s Peter Glen award, 2009. Accepted for Urban Outfitters Inc.
- Retail Design InfluencerDDI’s readers named James, 2010 and 2011. He also sat on its editorial advisory board in 2011.
- Design Week
Hot 50Design Week, 2010: Regent Street, by the “in‑house team, headed by James Smith”.
The six architecture and design honours were won by the design architects URBN hired, who worked under James’s direction. The full record
Design research
Our own unbuilt proposals, not client work, on one question: what should a store do, now that the screen is part of it? The same thinking goes into every roadmap, pointed at your stores. See the design research
New · October 2026
MISE.005 Mothership. A small computer in every store, and a mothership that shares what each one finds, so every new store opens knowing what the others found. Read the study
MISE.001Gallery HostAn online return, met in a fitting room with the right size.
MISE.002Garment PassportA service book in every label, and a service bay in every store.
MISE.003Second RoundA café whose regulars order the first bottling before it is made.
MISE.004Calling CardSend your AI ahead, and the floor has your shortlist waiting in one room.
MISE.005MothershipA rollout with a nervous system.James
James Andrew Smith, at your table from the first walk to the last opening.
James was tasked with building and leading URBN’s in‑house design studio and its team, then spent six years as COO of a retail real estate firm. He has a 27-year career and an Oxford Executive MBA, and trained in Milan and London.
There was always a stranger at our table.
James consulted on brand identity, store design, and marketing PR strategy, providing invaluable guidance that enhanced our launch and subsequent growth…
Contact
Tell us about your next stores.
Three quick answers: how many stores you have, what’s on the table now, and where it hurts.
If someone introduced you, start with their name.
Expect a reply within two working days.