The Churchill Square revamp is officially complete today with the opening of the biggest Topshop and Topmam stores outside London.
Queues formed before the new 22,000 sq. flagship store at Brighton’s Churchill Square Shopping Centre opened at 9am this morning.
The store opening marks the culmination of a year-long refurbishment of the centre, which has seen new double height glass shop fronts on the Western Road façade for existing stores BHS, Burtons and Dorothy Perkins along with a new Topshop Topman store.
The new Churchill Square store will feature the chain’s first joint Personal Shopping space in the UK; Topman’s first Personal Shopping department outside of London. The complimentary service offers customers a personalised experience, created exclusively by talented Personal Shoppers in the comfort of a private area.
This week beauty experts will be on hand offering complimentary make-overs and beauty advice – plus a free manicure. Once the beauty treatment is finished, customers will be able to perfect their pout in the Photobooth, while DJ’s play feel good music throughout the store.
To celebrate the new store launch Topshop’s online community will be able to use tweets as currency in ‘Topshop Tweet Shop’. Customers visiting the Churchill Square store between the 2nd and 5th October will be able to collect a free ‘Brighton Rock’ Lipstick – a bestselling colour, and retro sweets by hash-tagging #TOPSHOPBrightonRock in their social posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
Tina Dallorzo, Centre Director for Churchill Square says, “ We are really looking forward to welcoming Topshop and Topman to Churchill Square and seeing the completion of our much anticipated refurbishment. We are delighted with the results which offer a contemporary new look for Brighton’s landmark shopping destination.”
Churchill Square is the biggest shopping centre in the South East outside London welcoming approximately 12 million visitors to the centre each year.
Architect Sir Hugh Casson, who had been largely responsible for the Festival of Britain, first conceived the idea for Churchill Square Shopping Centre back in 1935 – though the war put a halt to any further progress until 1959 when the council began developing plans for a major shopping and entertainment centre.
Work on Churchill Square finally began in 1965. Blackburn’s menswear was the first shop to open in June 1967, with the rest of the 61 shops opening in 1968. Churchill Square was one of the last outdoor shopping centres to be built in the UK.
Churchill Square then underwent a major two-year redevelopment in 1996, reopening in September 4, 1998 with 70 new shops, including the country’s third biggest Virgin Megastore, Debenhams, Next and Dorothy Perkins.
Over the last two years Churchill Square has seen a raft of well known brands opening new stores at the centre – most recently Theo Paphitis lingerie brand Boux Avenue. Other big name brands opening in the centre over the last 18 months have included Zara Home, Bershka, Tiger, Pull and Bear, Smiggle, Monsoon Accessorize dual store, G-Star RAW, Fossil and restaurant Ed’s Easy Diner.
Picture by Viva Brighton
