RETAILER PROFILE | RidgeWey
Winner of our new kitchen retailer of the year award, Stuart Luckman,
owner of RidgeWey, met with George Dean to explain the unique challenges involved in getting a luxury retail business off to a running start
HIGH-END AND HIGHLY- COMMENDED
kitchen retailer – at least, until the kbbreview Retail & Design Awards 2025 – Stuart Luckman is no stranger to the
A industry. He
says, incredulously: “This will be my 24th year designing kitchens and interiors.”
Having left university with a degree in interior design, Luckman has always worked at the premium end of the industry.
His past includes several
positions in London’s West End showrooms, including almost a decade spent in Knightsbridge selling Poggenpohl. But several years ago, he
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lthough he can proudly call himself the country’s best and brightest new
left the industry to change careers. “I’d been doing it for a long time and fancied a break, so I went to work for a training company outside of the sector. I’d had a second kid, and I had some notion of working less hours and having long weekends.
“After just a couple of years, I found
that I really missed designing. When you’ve been doing it for as long as I have, you can really miss being part of that process.”
They say absence makes the heart
grow fonder, and Luckman’s desire to return to retail was kicked up a notch when he bought a house in need of a new kitchen. He admits: “People have joked that I only came back to the
industry because I couldn’t bear to go to another retailer!”
Combining the business experience he gained outside the sector with his decades of luxury retail knowledge, opening RidgeWey seemed like the natural step to pull all the threads of his career together.
“For my first project, I was essentially ordering a kitchen from myself,” he recalls, “that was a really great way of reminding myself how the retail process works again.”
Projecting premium At around 1,800 sq ft, the showroom space is comfortably roomy, but it houses very few physical displays. In
terms of kitchens, there are only five – admittedly sizeable – displays, along with a smattering of dining and seating areas, a fabric sample corner and a walk-in wine storage room. According
to Luckman, this
minimalist effect is all part of a carefully crafted strategy. He imparts: “You want your showroom to be your showcase, and your customers to see the latest and greatest. You don’t want to fill it up with tiny displays showing them every little thing you can do - you need to communicate
that you can do
anything, without actually telling them.” It’s an effect that definitely works, with the overarching atmosphere being a showroom space of curated
• June 2024
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