John Lewis has unveiled the first fruits of an £800 million investment in the brand over the next four years with its flagship store on Oxford Street, London, in particular benefitting from major spend to enlarge its Beauty Hall.

Its stores in High Wycombe and Cheadle have also seen upgrades to their beauty spaces, with spend at all three location more than justified by the importance of the category to the business. In fact,  John Lewis beauty sales in the first half of this year were up almost 7% on the same time last year.

In Oxford Street, the new, bigger Beauty Hall now has 41 beauty counters and shop-in-shop concepts, a 24% increase in footprint, and 175 beauty brands, an increase of 15%.  

Brands new to the store include The Inkey List, Mac, Skin+Me, Nudestix, and The Ordinary.  

Customers will also be able to access a huge range of services across beauty, skincare and haircare, while fragrance now has its own beautiful dedicated space, with Kilian, Parfum de Marly, and Loewe making their John Lewis Oxford Street debut. 

And in haircare, brands including Dyson, Shark and GHD, will join the likes of Wella Professional, Aveda, and Larry King in the fresh new haircare world discovery area. There are now 35% more hair-related products for sale, with 50% more brands introduced as part of the transformation. 

The branch has had further money spent on it to bring “significant improvements to all corners of its six floors including home, tech, jewellery, large electricals, and more”. 

In jewellery, fresh-to-the-store brands can be found in a new home on the first floor along with new piercing and jewellery welding services from Tish Lyon. This “fresh and elevated” part of the store is home to 46 brands. New labels launched are Dinny Hall, Enamel Copenhagen, Sarah Alexander, Hoxton London and Koijis Vintage Jewellery. 

Plus there’s a new partnership with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, to bring his new flagship Cookery School and Cafe to Oxford Street next spring. 

The company has also just opened Waterstones books in the branch.

The Oxford Street store will be a testbed for transformative improvements and changes, which will then roll out to the wider store portfolio. 

Executive Director for John Lewis, Peter Ruis said: “The buzz is back in John Lewis and we’re giving our customers even more reasons to shop in our brilliant stores. We’re backing ourselves with significant investment to ensure customers get the exceptional quality, outstanding service, and competitive prices they love about our unique brand.”