An Antipodean greeting
By Tom Howells
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What does Kiwi hospitality look like? Curious LDF attendees can swerve the 16-hour flight (and wallet-dusting outlay) with a trip to Fisher & Paykel – the sole global appliance company with wares designed in New Zealand. A huge player in the southern market, but less well known in the northern hemisphere, the brand’s MO is one of generosity and heritage. Nowhere is this more readily apparent than at its new London flagship.
A client visit to one of Fisher & Paykel’s global ‘experience centres’ begins with a hot rock tea ceremony: “A small token of New Zealand, to give people that moment to breathe and take it in and get to know us,” says Sasha Joseph, Fisher & Paykel’s Wigmore Street experience centre manager. She is speaking from its immersive ‘social kitchen’ where, in among the client coffee mornings and formal meetings, they hold their feted ‘Mastery of Temperature’ sessions: a signature masterclass exploring the nuance of different heats in food preparation, based around a five-course tasting menu.
Although Fisher & Paykel soft-launched earlier this year, LDF poses an opportunity for the brand to truly immerse itself in London’s endlessly fecund retail scene – to “utilise the festivals and events to really shout about what we're doing, taking people on a curated journey and tour throughout the space”, says Joseph. (Guests might enjoy a glass or two of New Zealand sauvignon blanc on the later openings, too.)
The Wigmore Street hub is consciously embedded within its context. Red brick tiles mirror those around Westminster, while a concave ceiling evokes the Underground. It’s all juxtaposed alluringly with pendants, furniture pieces and screens of beatific imagery from the home country. Storytelling – as much as building and nurturing client relationships – is an essential part of any successful brand. Fisher & Paykel just does it with an extra lick of Kiwi magic.
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