The winners of the 2026 Creative Retail Awards were announced on Thursday 15 October at The Clapham Grand, the new home of the Awards, where retailers, brands, designers, agencies and suppliers from across the industry came together for the creative retail industry’s biggest night. Twenty-five awards were presented across 21 categories and four special awards, with winning projects in the UK, France, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and South Africa.
The move brought the Awards to one of London’s most distinctive venues. First opened in 1900 as the New Grand Theatre of Varieties, The Clapham Grand is one of the capital’s surviving Victorian music halls, and in more than 125 years it has reinvented itself as a variety theatre, cinema, bingo hall, nightclub and live music venue, with Charlie Chaplin, Oasis and Muse among those to have performed there. With its balconies, royal boxes and ornate plasterwork still intact, it made a fitting stage for a programme built around originality, experience and the power of physical space.
Fittingly, the night’s standout name was a business with more than three centuries of history of its own. Fortnum & Mason was named Trailblazer of the Year, an award with no entry process and no shortlist, reserved for a retailer whose work, influence and approach to physical retail has made an exceptional impression on the Awards. The award was presented by Claire White, President of the Shop & Display Equipment Association (SDEA). The judges pointed to the way it keeps evolving and experimenting without losing what makes it distinctive. Its Piccadilly windows remain a fixture of London’s visual retail landscape, and the same thinking carries through its interiors, hospitality and new formats beyond Piccadilly, so that windows, interiors, product and customer experience feel like one recognisable retail world. It made for a big night all round, with Fortnum & Mason also winning Window Display for A Perfect Spring Day and Sustainable Display for Resourceful Nature, and being Highly Commended in Festive Display for Enchanted Christmas.
Sallie Smith, Head of Visual Presentation at Fortnum & Mason, said: “We were absolutely delighted to pick up three awards at the Creative Retail Awards. The one we’re particularly proud of is the Trailblazer Award. It was a real team effort and a wonderful recognition of the passion, creativity and hard work that goes into everything we do. It was also a great excuse for a fun night out, celebrating with colleagues and spending time with some of the most creative people in retail.”
Dr. Martens also left with two awards. Its Soho Beacon Store on Brewer Street, created in collaboration with Hotel Creative, won Store Design of the Year. The brand’s first Beacon store, spread across two floors, it topped a shortlist that included Holland & Barrett’s Experience Store in Cardiff, Neal’s Yard’s Covent Garden flagship with Etch and Portugal Jewels’ Rua Áurea 157 store in Lisbon, with Nespresso’s Covent Garden flagship Highly Commended.
Its second award came from the public. The SDD Spotlight Award, run in partnership with Shop Drop Daily, is the one award of the night decided entirely by public vote rather than the judging panel. Curated by Shop Drop Daily’s Tim Nash, the shortlist brought together ten standout UK projects featured on the platform over the past year, and a record number of votes were cast across the Creative Retail Awards and Shop Drop Daily voting portals. The public chose Dr. Martens’ The Art of Comfort Experience at The Outernet, London, ahead of the adidas Hybrid Hotel, Blank Street’s Post Room pop-up, HOKA’s Run Stop Corner Shop, the LANEIGE & Space NK activation, LOEWE Perfumes’ Crafted Garden at The Selfridges Corner Shop, L’Oréal Paris’ IWD Café & Cinema, Marc Jacobs’ Daisy Wild Eau So Intense pop-up, Nike Women on King’s Road, and the Prada and Miu Miu takeover at Liberty London. Nine of the ten were temporary, a clear sign of how much brands are now prepared to invest in spaces built to last weeks rather than years.
Design Agency of the Year went to B_RD, whose integrated approach stood out to the judges. With strategy, design, production, logistics and installation all in-house, the agency keeps the creative idea intact from first concept to final install. Its work ranged across windows, in-store activations, pop-ups, experiential campaigns and events with no fixed house style, and showed responsible working built into its projects, including repurposed materials in finished installations. B_RD also won Leisure, Visitor or Exhibition Attraction for Pandora at The Garden Museum for London Fashion Week and was Highly Commended in Window Display for Hackett’s Regent Street scheme, while Etch was Highly Commended in Design Agency of the Year for the strength and consistency of its work across retail design, windows, activations and visual merchandising.
Coach enjoyed a strong night too, winning Hospitality for The Coach Restaurant at Jewel Changi Airport, Singapore, and Retail Experience for Coach Play Osaka, alongside four Highly Commended awards. Holland & Barrett’s Experience Store in Cardiff, created with Syn, received the Judges’ Choice Award; St. Pancras International won Creative Collaboration for London St. Pancras Highspeed – Powered by Dreams; Brunello Cucinelli x Harrods took Festive Display with Pardgroup; and IKEA Oxford Street’s LED window façade and Immersive Live Studio, with d&b solutions, won Retail Technology Innovation.
Porsche was among those on the shortlist, recognised in Pop-Up or Temporary for Porsche NOW Liverpool. Mudassar Baig, Future Retail Project Manager at Porsche, said: “The Creative Retail Awards are important because they recognise genuine innovation and excellence in retail. So, to have our work acknowledged alongside the very best across the retail industry demonstrates what can be achieved when we challenge convention and push the boundaries of traditional automotive retail.”
As always, every result was decided by an independent panel of industry judges, who met face to face in London to assess the entries. The 2026 panel was Ian Scott, David Dalziel, Andrew Busby, Judith Kelly (Hammerson PLC), Matthew Brown (Echochamber), Barbara Chapman, Jack Stratten (Insider Trends), Tim Nash (Shop Drop Daily) and Isabella Fish (The Times & The Sunday Times).
Antony Behiels, Co-Organiser of the Creative Retail Awards and Director of the Shop & Display Equipment Association, said: “What stands out about this year’s winners is the range. A retailer with more than 300 years behind it, a boot brand’s flagship in Soho, an agency that builds what it designs, and winning work from Seoul to Singapore. The common thread is a clear idea that someone has seen through properly. Fortnum & Mason is exactly what the Trailblazer award is for. They could live off their history, instead they keep changing, and they keep doing it well.”
He added: “The venue had to live up to the work. Most awards nights happen in hotel ballrooms, and nobody remembers the room afterwards. A building with 125 years of reinvention in it felt right for a programme that celebrates what people do with physical space, and we’re delighted to have made The Clapham Grand the new home of the Creative Retail Awards. Congratulations to every winner and everyone Highly Commended, and thank you to our judges, our partners and everyone who joined us.”
Aidan Sadler hosted the ceremony, and once the last trophy had been handed out the band took over and the dancefloor filled, complete with a balloon drop over the crowd, as the band and DJ carried the celebrations on into the night. The 2026 Creative Retail Awards were supported by headline partner Kesslers London; premier partners Northbanks Design and Pardgroup; and category partners Arken POP, Antalis, B_RD, Candee.bio, Genesis Mannequins, Graphica Display, Hammerson, H.O.L Group, ISI Global, Learn VM, Mega Creative, Morplan, NAS, Proportion London, Retail Focus, roomly and VAST.
All the Winning, Highly Commended and Shortlisted entries can be found in the Winners Guide at www.creativeretailawards.com
Entries for the 2027 Creative Retail Awards open on 1 November 2026.
