Published: 16th December 2025
Summary
Start with a washer-upper in a ski resort, add a love of product design, and you get an unexpected path to leading one of retail’s most-watched transformations. We sit with the director of Home at John Lewis to unpack the £10 million refit of Bluewater and the mindset behind it: design for how customers actually shop, build teams that feel proud of their space, and back it all with quality that lasts.
We walk through the store’s biggest shifts, from a food and kitchen floor that celebrates prep and coffee craft, to a computing department arranged by use case rather than logo. The jewellery concept gleams, independent menswear brands add texture, and two new ideas — the gifting emporium and home lifestyle — bring clarity to choice. In Home, five distinct design styles replace timid displays with confident looks. If you want a ready-made room, it’s here. If you want to mix across styles, that path is open too. The throughline is inspiration you can act on, guided by partners who know their stuff and love their work.
We also dig into the brand’s stance on quality and sustainability — less “fast furniture”, more enduring design with better materials— and how that perspective shapes peak trading. Black Friday becomes an assurance play: matched prices across credible retailers, stronger guarantees, and expert service that makes decisions easy. With a calmer holiday runway this year and flexible options like late click and collect, the experience aims to reduce stress while keeping the magic intact. If you care about store design, customer journeys, and the future of department stores, this conversation opens the doors and lets you see the blueprint.
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Transcript
Host: 00:02
Welcome back to What’s in the Box, the brand new podcast brought to you by BOXTEC, powering retail with purpose.
Host: 00:10
BOXTEC delivers innovative and market-leading customer engagement solutions that turn business ideas into a performing reality. From design and integration to ongoing support and maintenance, we’re with you every step of the way. Now, this podcast is a little different to what you might be used to. It’s audio only, totally unscripted, and around about 20 minutes each episode because we’re busy. Our guests certainly are, and we’re sure you are too. So let’s get right into it. My guest today has extensive experience in retail management and buying, from his early beginnings on the shop floor at Harrods to currently serving as the director of Home at John Lewis and Partners. Previously, he was managing director at Feather and Black and Buying and Merchandise Director at the Conran Shop. Additional roles include director of buying for homewares, furnishings and beauty at Bentalls and various senior positions during his first spell at John Lewis, including head of buying for furniture and buyer for premium beauty. Early career experiences include senior buying roles at Heals and Woolworths, along with a buyer position at Homebase. He also holds a BA honours degree in product design from Coventry University. It’s really good to see you, Jason Wilary-Attew.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 01:28
Good to see you too, thank you. Wow. I’ve worked at quite a few places, haven’t I?
Host: 01:31
You have, you’ve done a lot. I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to cover all of that. But we’re sat here, we’re in your domain. So we’re in the newly refurbished, I think that’s the right word. That’s the word John Lewis store at Blue Water, and you were telling me earlier that 90%, I think it’s been a 10 million pound refit. The store, we’ve just finished a tour of it, looks amazing. We’ll get onto that. We’re sat in the Home area. But before we get into all the retail, your very first job. So I was looking, as one does, at the LinkedIn profile and so forth, and I think I’ve got the pronunciation right, a plongeur ski guide and chef in Val D’isere. So just tell us a little about that, and also perhaps did that bring you into your love of you know, the customer serving, customer experience, etc. etc.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 02:26
Great. Okay, it’s probably twofold. So before working in Val D’isere, I did the product design degree, and I basically just love product. So it’s just inbuilt in me. It spent four years designing that. But when I finished the degree, I just wanted to go skiing. So I’ve been lucky enough that we’d skied since I was five years old. We used to go to the army dry ski slope in Aldershot as I grew up. And so I’d skied since I was a child and just wanted to go and work at a ski resort. So I got the job out there, and just to explain what a plongeur is, it’s basically French for diving. So you’re diving into these massive sinks to wash up after 70 guests have eaten their dinner.
Host: 03:07
Yes, so you’re a washer-upper?
Jason Wilary-Attew: 03:08
Absolutely, big gloves on and washing lots of plates. But I suppose actually what I then did was by becoming a ski guide and then a chef, but particularly the ski guide, was interacting with customers. And so I’d be on the coach each week, doing a speech to the customers, welcoming them to the Alps. And so I suppose what all of this combines with I love shopping, I love shops, I love product, but I just love hanging out with people. Yes, so you combine the lot and retail’s your perfect environment.
Host: 03:37
So you went from there, and I guess that the first role really was on the shop floor at Harold’s. Tell us a little bit about that.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 03:46
How did that come about? So uh I realised I wanted to get into buying, so I wanted to combine my love of products and love of shops, and I wanted to get into buying. And I rang up a number of retailers and said, I want to be a buyer. They’re like, have you worked in a shop? I was like, no. And well, you should, and rightly so. I think everybody who works in retail should at some point have worked in a shop. Uh, you might find that’s not your perfect skill, but you should experience what we’re doing now, sitting here on the shop floor, seeing customers, engaging with products, see how they look at things. And so it really just started from there. I happened to ring Harrods, they were launching a brand new department. This is a long time ago, so 2023, I think, called Harrod’s World. And back then it was quite a new concept, it was Harrod’s branded gifts. So whether that was Teddy’s, shortbread, golf shirts, which actually, you know, that sounds like an obvious thing now, but back then that was quite a new idea and a new concept. So I was actually surprisingly privileged, brand new into working in shops, to be working in Harrods World. And yes, so that’s why I learnt my sort of shop experience, which of all shops to work in, that’s quite a pinnacle. But from there, because I was so desperate to get to buying, I was applying for different schemes onto the graduate trainee buying scheme at Homebase. Back then it was Sainsbury’s Homebase.
Host: 05:10
Because obviously Sainsbury’s had launched Homebase. So you would have been in Wallington?
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:14
I was in Wallington, yes.
Host: 05:16
So when was that? What year would that have been?
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:19
Oh gosh, where am I? Late 90s? Yes, 95, 6 or so.
Host: 05:23
Okay, so just after that, I’d have been just down the road at Superdrug.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:28
Oh my gosh, okay, yes.
Host: 05:29
Yes, yes.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:30
I probably applied to Superdrug at some point as well.
Host: 05:32
Yes, we had quite a few people who went between the two.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:34
Yes, exactly, just a vacation. So I worked I worked there for five years, and that’s I think where I had my really good old-fashioned training.
Host: 05:44
Yes.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:44
So every Monday morning I was coming in and I’d be looking at exception reports, whether we need to, I mean, you know, do we need to order stock or not?
Host: 05:52
Yes.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 05:52
And what had sold, and I’d be looking at my market data all printed out, GFK data saying, did we sell more than B&Q? And therefore, what can we do about it? And it was an amazing training ground for retail.
Host: 06:06
Yes.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 06:07
But then I got that moment where I don’t want to work in DIY. Um, my training had been in design, and I had back then three pinnacle retailers I wanted to work for: The Conran Shop, Heals and Habitat.
Host: 06:19
Right.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 06:20
So I managed two of them. I got an interview with Habitat and then didn’t get the job. But, I managed two of them. So my idea was I really wanted to go from DIY to then get onto the high street.
Host: 06:32
And was that those two brands? Was that because of your background in in design?
Jason Wilary-Attew: 06:39
Yes, yes. So it was my background in design. There’s no surprise that Sir Terence Conran, involved with both Habitat and Conran, was a hero of mine. And actually, a hero was my mum’s, if I’m really honest. So my mum and I used to bicker about who bought his interior book first, and she won because she did. So we had Habitat product around our house. I grew up with his books around our house, with my mum being passionate about interiors. We always have fabric sample books at home. Mum was always borrowing fabric sample books for something that she was going make herself, or something getting re-upholstered. So I suppose I lived in a house that loved product. So that’s how I got that sort of passion for those two.
Host: 07:19
Now you said something a couple of minutes ago, which I totally agree with now. It’s amazing how many senior C-suite, call it what you like, and CEOs in retail started on the shop floor. And it’s a shame, isn’t it? Because, what I observe in the industry is that there are too many young people now who think, no, I don’t want to go and work in a shop, or, I’ll get a Saturday job until I get a proper job. And I personally I think that retail as a whole can do a lot more to attract young people into it.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 07:54
I couldn’t agree more. I suppose actually just you know, as you said that, I was reflecting on two things. One was the inspiration that we took, and I mentioned this just earlier, when we went to New York, we were going around some of the New York stores, and the service that you get from the New York stores is brilliant. But, against all my preconceptions from many years ago, it’s really authentic.
Host: 08:17
Yes, they you go to Soho? Some of the stores are out there amazing, aren’t they?
Jason Wilary-Attew: 08:22
And you know, a couple of brands that we sell in the UK, West Elm, Pottery Barn. The guys are so engaging and they’re so proud of what they do, and where they work, and the brand. And because of that, they feel elevated. Yes, you know, I was working and go, that’s an expert – Wow, I’ve learnt from them. So the other reflection is I’m sitting here going, well, this is what we aim to do here. So we took that inspiration from New York of like, how does it feel when you’re one of those shops? It feels like you’re in the this area that just has authority. And actually, I want all the partners, John Lewis partners, working here to be really proud of what they’re doing. And when we were here last Friday, one of the partners came up to us and she just said, I’m just so proud.
Host: 09:04
Really? So proud of what we’ve done here.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 09:06
Yes. And through that, your service is better because you’re selling something you love in a beautiful environment. So I wholeheartedly agree with you. I didn’t work in shops for that long, but I still worked in shops.
Host: 09:18
Yes.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 09:18
And I still believe it was the right thing to do. And if there’s anything we could do to encourage, I think by creating inspirational spaces. You know, we walked through all the different areas here. Yes, I look after home, but we went to the jewellery space. For some reason I was obsessed with that space, it just looks gorgeous. I always wanted to sell jewellery, I’d want to be there. You know, because imagine coming in every day and you’ll you’ve got that wonderful environment to be in and sell from.
Host: 09:42
Yes. So let’s talk about the store. So, it’s been how many, 20 weeks of making and 90% has been touched, £10 million investment. So walk us through. I mean, we’ve just finished something for the media event and we you’ve taken us through the store. But just for the for the listeners, tell us about what’s changed, what’s new, and what if they come down to Bluewater, what can they expect?
Jason Wilary-Attew: 10:12
I’d encourage anybody who’s within travel distance to just come down because it is a gorgeous shop now. It really is. So, I think it’s about, I don’t know if it’s 100% accurate, I think it’s about 25-36 years we’ve been here. Last time we invested here was about nine years ago, and it’s a bit light touch. We’ve got our approach now with our shops going forward is we we’re effectively going to sort of do a refurbishment across the whole shop as we go forward. So, like you said, 90% of the space has been has been invested in somehow. And the idea is that each and every area is the best version of what we’ve got, right?
Host: 10:45
Yes.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 10:46
So if you go to the basement, we’ve just been where we’ve, we’ve got the waitress food hall, and it’s all about food prep, cooking, and your kitchen, etc. And you saw all the new concepts there. So we’ve made that really lovely and exciting, the most amazing coffee machines, they’re quite stunning. But then, as you come up through the shop, whether it’s menswear, where we’ve introduced all the independent brands, whether it’s the new jewellery concept, whether you go to look at computing, everything is stunning basically. Just a tiny bit about behind the scenes, what goes on. So, we were here about nine months ago, working with the design team, the space team, when it was a completely different layout, big bits of paper trying to work out how do we make this a stunning, different store for the customer? How do we expand the Ori Caffe, because customers are loving the cafe? How do we introduce Waterstones? How do we move Home? So, Home has transferred up here, we moved the lighting department from down below to allow Waterstones in; we lost a bit of space, we got a bit upset. And then you go – but we could have a new concept, and so you go through this journey of recreating a brand new shop, but the idea is everything is then a formula for the next shop. So, jewellery launched in Oxford Street, it’s now here. Large electricals launched somewhere else, it’s now here. So we’ve launched the two new concepts with the gifting emporium and Home lifestyle. We will now put that across other shops. So as we refurbish a shop in totality, it then gets all the new concepts in all the new areas, and hopefully, you bring that love and excitement to each category.
Host: 12:27
Yes, you mentioned the computing and I saw that first in Oxford Street, just tell us a little bit about that because I think it’s brilliant the way that you’ve arranged that, because it feels as if that’s how a shopper would experience it.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 12:42
Stolen my thunder. That’s it, genuinely. That is exactly it. It’s about getting inside the head of the customer, and say, how are they shopping? They don’t necessarily need to shop by brand, no, and I think the wonder of a department store, which I think we should all celebrate, is that we have multiple departments, we have own brand and we have brands, but we’re agnostic. So in this instance with computing, I think it was like what’s your everyday computer? The one that the kids go on, the one that you do shopping from, you don’t need it to be mega expensive and have all kinds of features, it’s actually a day-to-day one. That’s what I would buy, but then you have ones for the tech experts, and so we’ve arranged it like that rather than by brand. And actually, if you think about the lifestyle concept here, the whole thing here was customers say – I don’t know if you’ve got the styles I want. So again, we got inside the customers’ head and was like – What are they after? They want to be able to see style from us, understand those differences, and so that’s why we presented it this way, we’re trying to do that appropriate to each and every category.
Host: 13:50
And it feels, particularly here in Home and furnishing and so forth, that it’s, which I think is what great retail is all about, providing inspiration and new ideas, because I’m sure that you know people okay, they might have let’s say that they’re restyling their living room, for example. They’ll probably have some ideas and they’re going to go to different sources, but they still need help and advice.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 14:16
Yes. So my whole thought process behind this is where we’ve got these five home design styles with really clear looks. Some customers almost need that help to go, this is their look, you could just recreate it. Others will say, don’t give me that, I don’t need that, but actually, they won’t mind it being laid out this way. And if customers want to shop across, fine. But hopefully we’ve inspired them because we have an opinion. And I think that we were guilty maybe recently in Home of not having a strong enough opinion, and we’re now just saying, let’s be brave and just have an opinion. There’s five styles, we think they’re great. You might not like all five, you may only like two. That’s fine. Shop what you like from us, but at least you know we have a sense of style.
Host: 14:58
Yes. And that seems to be on a sort of broader note about the partnership, because you know, I’ve been covering for a good few years now what’s been going on. It seems that you know, post-COVID, that it really is an upward trajectory in a number of different ways. And what you’ve described about the philosophy almost behind it, it seems that it’s got its mojo back, if you like, if that’s the right way to put it.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 15:32
Yes, I think we’ve got our mojo back. I think the market has. I think there’s something I was chatting about with the David, the head of design, this morning, and we were just talking about ethics and sustainability, and actually selling better-made products has more longevity, but not just from a practical point of view. Well, it’s less a test of time, but actually the quality, but also the style. So it’s not about fast furniture or fast home, it’s about beautiful styles that will last forever, but also it’s made brilliantly, and that we’re quite proud of that. That where we sit in the market, that we believe, you know, as a mid-premium retailer, that actually it’s the quality of our product, but not just the actual physical quality, it’s the style quality.
Host: 16:17
Yes, yes. Now you mentioned the market there, and you know, we’ve got to well, I was going to say we’re a couple of weeks away from Black Friday, but no, Black Friday now is we’re here, we’re in it. And I know that you’re in it. Tell us because again, during the tour earlier, you were saying a little bit about the John Lewis philosophy of approaching Black Friday. It’s not, as we saw years ago, that the mad rush for the TV screen and fighting in the aisles and all the rest of it, it’s nothing like that whatsoever now. So tell us a bit about what Black Friday means for John Lewis.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 16:51
So, I suppose I mean what underpins it all is our promise. So never knowingly undersold, we’re famous for that. But I think I’ll get really clear on that, it’s about quality, it’s about service and about price. So I think the great thing there is customers know if they’re buying a branded product, we’ll match. So we match 25 credible retailers, and so we’ll have the same retail price, but often we’ll have a better guarantee, we might have better availability. Hopefully, the service the customers experience from us will be stunning. So we try and wrap it up completely, but it just means for Black Friday they don’t need to worry. So if they come to our beauty category, they know they’re going to get the best price of the market, but they’ll also get brilliant service. I mean, you saw the beauty hall down there, it’s world class. If you go to buy a laptop, that we were just talking about, it’ll be the best price on the market, but you’ll get fantastic service. So we don’t need to shout about it. We’re going to very consciously match the competition, have the best retail, but layer on everything else. Now we are also putting some other promotions on our own brand product because it’s the right time of year. But I think what we were discussing earlier, about the sort of the gifting and self-gifting element of Black Friday, it’s turned from I need a TV to actually what are the things I want in the house, it might include a TV, but it could also just be gifting product or self-treat. So I think it’s a slightly more joyous moment of the year now than it used to be.
Host: 18:14
Yes. And of course, it’s going pretty much seamlessly roll into Christmas. We’ve got some, people would be glad to know we’re not going to talk about the budget, we’ll let that do its own thing. But Christmas, what lead up to that? It’s this year on a Thursday, I think, yeah, and the way the date falls.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 18:38
Which is great because it actually gives longer shopping time, but more relaxing time. So you’ve got a good quality weekend before. So whether you’re super pre-planned, that’s your relaxing weekend. Whether you’re not planned, you’re on a weekend before.
Host: 18:50
..and people are going take that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off.
Jason Wilary-Attew: 18:53
Exactly. So that’s what I’m trying to plan at the moment. But yes, I think that it should mean that there’s a slightly more relaxed climb to the peak, because sometimes the further around the timing, you know, Christmas on a Monday, then actually people don’t have that quality of time off. And so it’s really quite desperate. I think what’s great is that we’ve ended up doing our click-and-collect to about the last minute, and I’ve used that a few times. Christmas Eve, click and collect. A bit risky, but you know, we will serve through to then. I think what’s interesting at the moment, with the weather as it is, it’s too warm at the moment, and so we are seeing interesting patterns in sales, waiting for people to buy their really heavy winter coats, but other areas are flying, so the pattern is just a little different. But you know, we all cope with the weather in retail, it’s just part of what you do. Christmas is performing brilliantly, it’s our actual Christmas category. It’s up on last year, which was always pleasing, and we have those extra days as well as we lead into it.
Host: 20:01
Yes, yes. We’re pretty much out of time, and I think that’s a great place to leave it. I think personally, I said we’re not talking about the budget, but I think that people are going to put two fingers up to Rachel from accounts and they’re going to have a great Christmas, which I think is pretty good for retail. Jason, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure, thanks a lot. That’s all from What’s in the Box for now. New episodes will be dropping every two weeks, so please stay tuned. And if you want to find out more about BOXTEC, please follow the link in the description. Thanks for listening.