From Flagship Stores to Private Homes: How Andrew Hodgkinson’s Design Legacy Shapes His Residential Work Today

Step into a Hodgkinson Design home, and you’ll sense it immediately: clarity, elegance, flow. These aren’t just homes that look good in photographs - they work. They are not an Instagram image but a highly considered environment for our clients to live in. What many might not realise is that the DNA of these spaces is rooted in Andrew Hodgkinson’s long and accomplished history designing some of the UK’s most iconic commercial interiors.

Before focusing on private residential work, Andrew led the design for luxury retail environments for fashion and beauty giants at Space NK, Reiss, French Connection, Nicole Farhi, Karl Lagerfeld, and Yves Saint Laurent, as well as in department stores (called shop in shops) including Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Krizia, and Fenwicks. His early work shaped how we experience retail today - with a strong emphasis on atmosphere, functionality, and timeless appeal.

Old Projects, Lasting Impact

What makes Andrew’s background so unique - and so valuable to today’s residential clients - is the sheer range of design challenges he has mastered. From high-end fashion and beauty boutiques to showrooms, department stores, and restaurants, each space had its own set of needs, pressures, and expectations. Commercial design taught him how to read a space, identify what it needs to achieve, and then shape what it should feel like.

It’s this ability - to interpret and translate the specific needs of a client and a space - that continues to define his work in residential architecture today. The underlying goal remains the same: to deliver spaces that are not just beautiful, but highly functional, intuitive, and built to last.

Reading People, Reading Space

At the heart of Andrew’s design ability is something that can’t be taught - instinct. Over the years, he’s developed a quiet but powerful ability to read and interpret, to understand, often through subtle cues, what kind of environment would truly suit. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” he says, “but I’ve always had an ability to read a situation, I’d call it instinct. It helps me understand who someone is and what kind of space will actually work for them, even before they fully know it themselves.”

This intuitive understanding doesn’t just apply to people, it also extends to design itself. Andrew has a strong sense of where the design language is moving, but his focus is never on chasing trends. “Design is always evolving,” he explains, “but I’m not interested in setting trends for the sake of it. I want my work to last. Trends are temporary, but good design endures.”

That commitment to longevity, to creating homes that will still feel right years from now, is part of what makes Hodgkinson Design so respected among clients who value substance over current fashion.

From Retail Intelligence to Residential Intuition

Take Space NK, for example - still one of Andrew’s most defining retail projects. His idea was clear: let the product be the star. Everything else had to support and enhance the product. The result was a store concept where everything was white - minimal, clean, and restrained - allowing the merchandise to be the hero. It became a category-defining identity, and it’s still in use today.

This level of conceptual clarity - knowing how to make a space speak without shouting - now finds a home in Andrew’s residential work. The lessons learned designing for people to move through a store, feel a space, and connect emotionally with it, now help him create homes that feel natural, considered, and quietly powerful.

In retail, the space needs to invite you in. In a home, it needs to hold you, support your lifestyle, and adapt to your changing requirements. In both cases, it's about understanding human behaviour and creating environments that enhance it.

Clients Who Know What They Want

Andrew’s long-standing work with high-profile clients has also shaped the way he works today. Many of those clients, both past and present, know Hodgkinson Design for its strong visual identity - one that blends elegance, restraint, and longevity.

These are clients who expect the best. They expect timelessness - not fleeting fancy. They value thoughtful, durable design - something that feels natural, but has been deeply considered. That same philosophy carries through from the retail world to the residential one: making environments that improve people’s lives, not just impress them momentarily.

Beauty That Lasts - And Works

There’s a misconception that beautiful homes are easy to design. They’re not. It’s hard to create a space that feels simple, seamless, and luxurious - and still works brilliantly every day. Functionality is where great design starts. Beauty comes from how well a space serves its purpose.