On the day European leaders "agreed" a plan to resolve the Eurozone financial crisis and write off Greek debt (hence my poor headline) I had a look in the new Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, east London. It was on my way home and I just made a small detour.
It is impressive! I realise that it still has huge novelty and "shiny" value and that it is half term, but at 4:30 pm on damp Thursday afternoon it was BUSY. Not uncomfortably busy in that you cannot move, but commercially busy. What double-dip recession?
Having visited a number of impressive malls in the US, I would say that this new one is up with the best of them. It is maybe not quite s spacious, but the layout and finish inside and out, across three or so floors is very good. Many of the brand names are ones you would see in the US eg Hollister, Forever 21, etc, but with many of our own.
Two things struck me though. The first was it was like walking around a united nations, it felt like most if not all nations of the world were represented in the people there, far more than you would find in the US , even in New York I think.
The second was that the food offerings were on another level to US malls, variety, number and maybe quality. In a US mall there is usually a fast food, food court (does what it says on the tin) and a handful of other usually chain restaurants. In contrast this Westfield seems to have loads of food places and food concessions, spread amongst the shops.
We will see how well it fares and if the other Westfield in west London suffers, but from yesterday's viewing it would be hard to know there was any financial hardship around.
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