When Scott Malkin first arrived in Bicester in 1991 it was a one-horse town. “I came to take a look at a piece of land just off the M40. All I could see when I got there was a forlorn-looking mare wandering around fields that were filled with debris,” he recalls. But Malkin liked what he saw and bought the land for £15 million. What the boss of Value Retail did next changed shopping for ever. He created the world’s first upscale discount-fashion shopping centre: Bicester Village.
“Nobody in Britain thought it would work,” he says with a laugh. Back then outlet malls were cheap and not-so-cheerful jumble sales of “factory shops” with a naff food court. How wrong the critics were. Bicester Village, which is celebrating its 30th birthday this month, now rivals Bond Street for a posh shopping trip, attracting more than seven million visitors a year. “We’ve gone from 13 boutiques and one café to 150 boutiques and five restaurants,” says Desirée Bollier, Malkin’s right-hand woman.
Its boutiques are the same as you would find in Bond Street — Prada, Gucci, Dior, Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana, Loro Piana, Brunello Cucinelli, Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Loewe, Celine — but with prices 30-40 per cent lower, sometimes more. The service is better than Mayfair. Hands-free shopping means you can collect all your bags in one go at a central hub when you have finished caning your credit card. The restaurants are Cecconi’s and Ottolenghi.
• Read more fashion advice and style inspiration from our experts
With each shopper staying a mind-bending average of six hours, Bicester generates more sales per square foot per year than any other shopping centre in the world — nearly £4,000 in recent years, according to company sources. That’s better than Dubai Mall and the snazzy Bal Harbour in Miami. Small wonder Bicester is celebrating its 30th anniversary in style.
From now until the end of August, drive or take the train to the dedicated railway station on the line between Marylebone and Oxford and you can step back in time to the 1990s (Spice Girls platform trainers optional). Brands will sell, for a limited time, items that were popular in their 1990s collections, including: the Ferragamo Wanda bag; Marc Jacobs’s tote bag from his grunge collection; a Lacoste tennis capsule collection; and Mac cosmetics in 1990s colours.
You can listen to the Blur bassist Alex James’s favourite songs in one of the Village’s red phone boxes, which have been transformed into listening booths. A bespoke newsstand will sell limited-edition 1995 branded merchandise, including baseball caps numbered 1 to 1,995, pens and paper, pick’n’mix sweets, and canned water (even though no one drank water back then).
• Try this fashion insider’s trick for stress-free online shopping
I first visited Bicester in the late Nineties and kept returning, becoming one of the regulars — known, inevitably, as Village People — who work to a strict code: go often and early and make friends with the store managers of your favourite brands, who will tip you off when the good stuff is coming in.
My highlights? A Bulgari Parentesi necklace, an Etro shirt and Gucci trainers for my other half, Stephanie. And, for me, a Dunhill navy wool peacoat, Brunello Cucinelli T-shirts, Loro Piana trousers, an Eleventy suit, Brioni shirts and Zegna … oh Zegna! After the second Covid lockdown brands had so much excess stock they were chucking it out the door. In a special one-off sale it was 80 per cent off Zegna Italian handmade suits, cashmere, Trofeo shirts and Triple Stitch and Tiziano sneakers. I bought a wardrobe big enough to start my own boutique.
I was there when Elton John launched his limited-edition eyewear, and also when Prada offered a one-off promotion on its iconic techno-stretch suits and poplin-stretch shirts. It was only a matter of time — and pounds — before I earned the right to visit the invitation-only Apartment, a lounge where you can rest and relax after a luxury “walk out” (it’s almost a mile from one end of the Village to the other). If you are taking the train home, a free celebratory martini in the Apartment before you head off is essential.
Bicester succeeds because it works for brands and consumers. Brands have excess stock at the end of each season that they are not allowed to destroy any more and are reluctant to sell at a discount in their full-price stores because it devalues the label. But they are more than happy to sell it for a minimum of 30 per cent off in the middle of the Oxfordshire countryside. Consumers — seasoned followers of fashion and newbies — are content to travel from London, Birmingham and Manchester to grab a bargain. It helps that the stores aren’t intimidating. Sales assistants don’t size up your spending power as you walk in, as they often do on Bond Street. “We’ve democratised luxury,” Bollier boasts.
Some big-name brands were sniffy at first but most have come round, enabling Malkin and Bollier to create 11 other Villages, eight across Europe, two in China and one newly opened on Long Island, near JFK airport.
Rivals have tried to copy Bicester, but the Villages have remained “head and shoulders above competitors”, says Luca Solca, leading luxury analyst at Bernstein, because they constantly raise their game. It’s not only the brands that get posher year on year — coming soon for men is the Italian fashion brand Kiton — so does the service. A private members’ club with 12 personal shopping suites will open next year.
• No-buy 2025: What I learnt when I quit shopping
Malkin believes the more the internet and AI dominate our lives, the more important it is to offer great service at bricks-and-mortar stores. “No consumer enjoys online shopping,” he says. “If you’re a fashion brand, every sale you make online commoditises and diminishes your reputation. Your brand is just another mouse-click. The emotional side of life is more important than ever.”
He will do anything to lift shoppers’ spirits. For example, to hide the utilitarian ticket hall at Bicester Village station, Malkin spent millions building an upscale Village-branded entrance and exit. Value Retail has also opened two beachfront hotels in southern California, Mission Pacific and the Seabird, “to use as a test bed to refine how we offer hospitality to our guests at Bicester”, Malkin says. Yes, he has spent tens of millions of dollars to become a US hotelier to make Oxfordshire shoppers happier (and spendier).
It may be entering middle age but Bicester Village is still growing. The western terrace is coming soon, with 28,000 sq ft of new shops and cafés, taking the total shop-floor space to 350,000 sq ft, almost four times the 90,000 sq ft when it opened. Some of those boutiques, along with those in the existing Village, will for the first time sell a few new season items at full price, including Canada Goose, Manolo Blahnik, Ferragamo, Maison Margiela, Jil Sander, Eleventy and Zegna.
Full price? That wasn’t in Malkin’s original script. Bollier explains: “Many guests are not price sensitive. They just want to find a piece to fall in love with.” Fine — but competing with Bond Street on full-price new-season collections creates a problem. On my most recent visit to the Village last month I saw for the first time plenty of items with a four-figure price tag. Four figures seems way too much for a discount mall to me.
“We need to be vigilant, to keep complete clarity on our mission: to offer value and a superb experience,” Bollier acknowledges. She points out that brands will not be able to sell more than 10-15 per cent of items on the shop floor at full price. That will not be enough to put off “the ones who really want to shop 40, 60, 70 per cent off.”
She’s probably right.
Bicester Village, 50 Pingle Drive, Bicester, Oxfordshire, thebicestercollection.com
