Peacocks
The Project
Back in 1884, Albert Frank Peacock founded Peacock’s Penny Bazaar in Warrington, Cheshire. A true Victorian Penny Bazaar, it sold anything and everything. It’s this founding principal of value for money that helped create a name for Peacocks and develop a successful business that has continued to grow. In the mid-1990s Peacocks diversified into fashion and it’s within this market that the brand has had even greater success, now employing more than 6,000 staff in over 200 stores across the UK and Europe.
The Brief
With Peacocks embarking upon a 50 store refurbishment program starting with its Wallington store in Surrey, plus the opening of a new flagship store within White River Place in St. Austell, Cornwall, Kosnic Lighting Ltd was selected by the brand’s electrical supplier Moss Electrical to design and install an energy-efficient, low-maintenance lighting scheme. The lighting design needed to deliver optimal lighting performance for the single storey retail environment, showing off Peacocks’ products in the best possible way and complement the look and feel of the store’s interior design.
The Solution
Kosnic, in conjunction with industry partners, developed a lighting scheme based around High Bay luminaires. Although a High Bay is typically used in industrial applications such as factories, Kosnic felt that its lighting properties would provide the right solution with some alterations.
Kosnic adapted a traditional, industrial-looking High Bay design to create a bespoke, decorative solution that provided a softer look and is in-keeping with the aesthetics of the Peacocks store. The luminaires usually have an aluminium finish as standard. However, to meet the client’s bespoke requirements Kosnic supplied white powder-coated fittings to match the white interior of the St. Austell store, and black powder coated fittings to match the black ceiling of the Wallington store, both creating a more refined and stylish in-store appearance. High Bay luminaires are typically high in wattage, ranging between 100-200W. This would have been too bright and harsh for the retail environment, so a 50W version was created specifically for Peacocks. A special diffuser has also been used for a softer, more ambient light level.
In the retail environment, Kosnic also had the Colour Rendering Index (CRI) and Correlated Colour Temperature (CCT) to consider. The CRI needs to be high to show off the vibrant colours and tones of the clothing, so the product’s CRI needed to be improved to compare with other retail-specific solutions. The CRI level in the new product exceeds 80, whereas High Bays are only 70. Meanwhile the CCT needed to be in the region of 4000K rather than 6500K, to provide a softer lighting quality rather than a clinical effect. The lower 4000K also matched the downlights and panels used within the lighting design, providing uniformity throughout this store, and throughout the chain of Peacock outlets.
Kosnic’s new High Bay solution, with its bespoke shape, wattage, CRI and CCT, was developed quickly by the team. A sample was manufactured and with the customer for review within two weeks of receiving the brief. Alex Tucker, Sales and Marketing Executive from Moss Electrical, who specified Kosnic, has been impressed by the brand’s flexibility and initiative: “We’ve worked with Kosnic many times and know the project team delivers outstanding, high quality solutions for a variety of environments. With this project the team went above and beyond, redesigning a typical High Bay luminaire to create a bespoke product suitable for the environment. We’ve been impressed by the ingenuity and the company’s rapid manufacturing capabilities.”
The Result
Both Peacocks and Moss Electrical SW are ecstatic with the Kosnic lighting design, which met all the brief criteria and was turned around in an impressive time of 3 weeks. “The new store looks fantastic,” says Luke Ford of Peacocks. “This is a really important addition to our network of over 400 outlets, and it was essential that we got the look and feel right. Lighting plays a huge factor in this: the right light really picks out the colours and the detail of the clothing, and is also important for making our customers feel good when trying on our products. Kosnic has provided the perfect solution and we’ve been blown away by the speed and accuracy of the team, and the attention to detail in our requirements. We were expecting a solution, but for us to have a completely bespoke fitting created in such a short time is remarkable.” As a result, Peacocks has selected Kosnic to provide the lighting design and solutions for its ongoing refurb program over the coming months.
