Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end
department store
A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made a dramatic app ...
s in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores.
It was founded by
Harry Gordon Selfridge
Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947) was an American retail magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges. His 20-year leadership of Selfridges led to his becoming one of the most respected and wealthy ...
in 1908.
The historic
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
-designed
flagship store
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...
on
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
's
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
is the second-largest shop in the UK (after
Harrods) and opened on 15 March 1909.
Other Selfridges stores opened in the
Trafford Centre
The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and entertainment complex in Greater Manchester, England. It opened in 1998 and is third largest in the United Kingdom by retail space.
Originally developed by the Peel Group, the Trafford C ...
(1998) and
Exchange Square
Exchange may refer to:
Physics
*Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States
* Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* ...
(2002) in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, and in the
Bullring
A bullring is an arena where bullfighting is performed. Bullrings are often associated with the Iberian Peninsula, but they can also be found through Iberian America and in a few Spanish and Portuguese ex-colonies in Africa. Bullrings are ...
in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
(2003).
In the 1940s, smaller provincial Selfridges stores were sold to the
John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership plc (JLP) is a British company which operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose & Partners supermarkets, its banking and financial services, and other retail-related activities. The privately-held pu ...
, and in 1951, the original Oxford Street store was acquired by the
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
-based
Lewis's
Lewis's was a chain of British department stores that operated from 1856 to 2010. The owners of Lewis's have gone into administration many times over the years, including 1991. The first store, which opened in Liverpool city centre, became ...
chain of department stores. Lewis's and Selfridges were then taken over in 1965 by the
Sears Group, owned by
Charles Clore
Sir Charles Clore (26 December 1904 – 26 July 1979) was a British financier, retail and property magnate, and philanthropist.
Life and career
Clore was of Lithuanian Jewish background, the son of Israel Clore, a Whitechapel tailor who had em ...
.
[subscription required] Expanded under the Sears Group to include branches in Manchester and Birmingham,
the chain was acquired in 2003 by Canada's
Galen Weston
Willard Gordon Galen Weston (October 29, 1940April 12, 2021) was a British-Canadian billionaire businessman and Chairman Emeritus of George Weston Limited, a Canadian food processing and distribution company. Weston and his family, with an esti ...
for £598 million.
In December 2021, the
Weston family
The Weston family is a prominent Canadian-origin family of businesspeople with global interests primarily in food and clothing ventures. The family operations began with the purchase of a bakery in 1884 by American-born Canadian George Weston in ...
agreed to sell the majority of Selfridges Group for around £4 billion to a joint venture between Thai conglomerate
Central Group and Austria's
Signa Holding. The acquisition was completed on August 23, 2022.
History
The basis of Harry Gordon Selfridge's success was his relentlessly innovative marketing, which was elaborately expressed in his
Oxford Street store. Originally from America himself, Selfridge attempted to dismantle the idea that
consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the su ...
was strictly an
American phenomenon.
He tried to make shopping a fun adventure and a form of leisure instead of a chore, transforming the department store
into a social and cultural landmark that provided women with a public space in which they could be comfortable and legitimately indulge themselves.
Emphasizing the importance of creating a welcoming environment, he placed merchandise on display so customers could examine it, moved the highly profitable perfume counter front-and-centre on the ground floor, and established policies that made it safe and easy for customers to shop. These techniques have been adopted by modern department stores around the world.
Either Selfridge or
Marshall Field
Marshall Field (August 18, 1834January 16, 1906) was an American entrepreneur and the founder of Marshall Field and Company, the Chicago-based department stores. His business was renowned for its then-exceptional level of quality and customer ...
is popularly held to have coined the phrase "
the customer is always right
__NOTOC__
"The customer is always right" is a motto or slogan which exhorts service staff to give a high priority to customer satisfaction. It was popularised by pioneering and successful retailers such as Harry Gordon Selfridge, John Wanamake ...
",
and Selfridge used it regularly in his advertising.
![Selfridges Oxford Street](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Selfridges_Oxford_Street.jpg)
Selfridge attracted shoppers with educational and scientific exhibits and was himself interested in education and science, believing that the displays would introduce potential new customers to Selfridges and thus generate both immediate and long-term sales.
In 1909, after the first cross-
Channel flight,
Louis Blériot's
monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
was put on display at Selfridges, where it was seen by 12,000 people.
John Logie Baird
John Logie Baird FRSE (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working television system on 26 January 1926. He went on to invent the first publicly dem ...
made the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
from the first floor of Selfridges from 1 to 27 April 1925.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the roof of the store hosted terraced gardens, cafes, a mini golf course and an all-girl gun club. The roof, with its extensive views across London, was a common place for strolling after a shopping trip and was often used for fashion shows.
During the Second World War, The store's basement was used as an air-raid shelter and during raids employees were usually on the lookout for incendiary bombs and took watch in turns.
A Milne-Shaw
seismograph was set up on the Oxford Street store's third floor in 1932, attached to one of the building's main stanchions, where it remained unaffected by traffic or shoppers. It successfully recorded the Belgian earthquake of 11 June 1938, which was also felt in London. In 1947, it was given to the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
.
The huge
SIGSALY scrambling apparatus, by which transatlantic conferences between American and British officials (most notably
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
and
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
) were secured against eavesdropping, was housed in the basement from 1943 on, with extension to the
Cabinet War Rooms
The Churchill War Rooms is a museum in London and one of the five branches of the Imperial War Museum. The museum comprises the ''Cabinet War Rooms'', a historic underground complex that housed a British government command centre throughout the ...
about a mile away.
![Trafford Centre Selfridges](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Trafford_Centre_Selfridges.jpg)
In 1926, Selfridges set up the
Selfridge Provincial Stores
Selfridge Provincial Stores was a holding company of a group of department stores in the United Kingdom. The company was formed by Selfridge & Co. in 1926 and was active until 1940.
History
In 1926, financier Jimmy White convinced Harry Gordon ...
company, which had expanded over the years to include sixteen provincial stores, but these were sold to the
John Lewis Partnership
The John Lewis Partnership plc (JLP) is a British company which operates John Lewis & Partners department stores, Waitrose & Partners supermarkets, its banking and financial services, and other retail-related activities. The privately-held pu ...
in 1940. The
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
-based
Lewis's
Lewis's was a chain of British department stores that operated from 1856 to 2010. The owners of Lewis's have gone into administration many times over the years, including 1991. The first store, which opened in Liverpool city centre, became ...
chain of department stores acquired the remaining
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
Shop in 1951, expanding the brand by adding Moultons of
Ilford, purchased from rival chain R H O Hills and renaming the store Selfridges. In 1965 the business was purchased by the
Sears Group, owned by
Charles Clore
Sir Charles Clore (26 December 1904 – 26 July 1979) was a British financier, retail and property magnate, and philanthropist.
Life and career
Clore was of Lithuanian Jewish background, the son of Israel Clore, a Whitechapel tailor who had em ...
.
Under the Sears group, branches in Ilford and Oxford opened, with the latter remaining Selfridges until 1986, when Sears rebranded it as a Lewis's store. In 1990, Sears Holdings split Selfridges from Lewis's and placed Lewis's in administration a year later. In March 1998, Selfridges acquired its current logo in tandem with the opening of the Manchester
Trafford Centre
The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and entertainment complex in Greater Manchester, England. It opened in 1998 and is third largest in the United Kingdom by retail space.
Originally developed by the Peel Group, the Trafford C ...
store and Selfridges' demerger from Sears.
In September 1998, Selfridges expanded and opened a department store in the newly-opened
Trafford Centre
The Trafford Centre is a large indoor shopping centre and entertainment complex in Greater Manchester, England. It opened in 1998 and is third largest in the United Kingdom by retail space.
Originally developed by the Peel Group, the Trafford C ...
in Greater Manchester. Following its success, Selfridges announced they would open an additional store in
Exchange Square
Exchange may refer to:
Physics
*Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States
* Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* ...
,
Manchester city centre
Manchester City Centre is the central business district of Manchester in Greater Manchester, England situated within the confines of Great Ancoats Street, A6042 Trinity Way, and A57(M) Mancunian Way which collectively form an inner ring road. ...
. The Exchange Square store opened in 2002 as Manchester city centre started to return to normal following the
1996 Manchester bombing
The 1996 Manchester bombing was an attack carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on Saturday, 15 June 1996. The IRA detonated a lorry bomb on Corporation Street in the centre of Manchester, England. It was the biggest ...
. A
store opened in 2003 in
Birmingham
Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...
's
Bull Ring.
In 2003, the chain was acquired by Canada's
Galen Weston
Willard Gordon Galen Weston (October 29, 1940April 12, 2021) was a British-Canadian billionaire businessman and Chairman Emeritus of George Weston Limited, a Canadian food processing and distribution company. Weston and his family, with an esti ...
for £598 million and became part of Selfridges Group, which also includes
Brown Thomas
Brown Thomas & Company Limited is a chain of five Irish department stores, located in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Dundrum Town Centre. Part of the Selfridges Group, Brown Thomas is an upmarket chain, akin to Britain's Selfridges store ...
and Arnotts in Ireland,
Holt Renfrew
Holt, Renfrew & Co., Limited (doing business as Holt Renfrew and known colloquially as Holt's) is a Canadian luxury department store chain founded in 1837 by William S. Henderson. It has been owned by the Weston family since 1986, and was previo ...
in Canada and
de Bijenkorf
De Bijenkorf (; literally, "the beehive") is a chain of high-end department stores in the Netherlands, with its flagship store on Dam Square in Amsterdam. The chain is owned by Selfridges Group, which also owns Britain's Selfridges and Ireland's ...
in the Netherlands. Weston, a retailing expert who is also the owner of major supermarket chains in Canada, has chosen to invest in the renovation of the Oxford Street store – rather than to create new stores in British cities other than Manchester and Birmingham.
Simon Forster is the Managing Director of Selfridges, while Anne Pitcher is the Managing Director of Selfridges Group.
In October 2009, Selfridges revived its rooftop entertainment with the opening of "The Restaurant on the Roof". In July 2011,
Truvia
Truvia (also shown as ''truvía'') is a brand of stevia-based sugar substitute developed jointly by The Coca-Cola Company and Cargill. It is distributed and marketed by Cargill as a tabletop sweetener as well as a food ingredient. Truvia is made o ...
created an emerald green boating lake (with a waterfall, a boat-up cocktail bar and a forest of Stevia plants). In 2012 the Big Rooftop Tea and Golf Party featured "the highest afternoon tea on Oxford Street" and a nine-hole golf course with "the seven wonders of London" realised in cake as obstacles.
In August 2020, during a difficult time for UK retail, Selfridges offered luxury pieces for hire to millennial and socially conscious clients. The store partnered with HURR, an online fashion rental platform, offering hire of 100 items from over 40 fashion brands for up to 20 days at a time.
The
Weston family
The Weston family is a prominent Canadian-origin family of businesspeople with global interests primarily in food and clothing ventures. The family operations began with the purchase of a bakery in 1884 by American-born Canadian George Weston in ...
put the Selfridges business up for auction in July 2021, with an estimated value of £4 billion. The sale includes all stores including the flagship
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
store and worldwide outlets. In early December 2021, the family was reported to be finalising the chain's sale to Central Group.
On December 24, 2021, it was announced that the majority of Selfridges Group had been sold to a joint venture between Thai conglomerate Central Group and the Austrian Signa Holding for around £4 billion ($5.37 billion); the former owner (the Canadian branch of the Weston family) had bought Selfridges for nearly £600 million in 2003. The acquisition was completed on August 23, 2022.
The shop's early history was dramatised in
ITV's 2013 series, ''
Mr Selfridge
''Mr Selfridge'' is a British period drama television series about Harry Gordon Selfridge and his department store, Selfridge & Co, in London, set from 1908 to 1928. It was co-produced by ITV Studios and Masterpiece/WGBH for broadcast on IT ...
''.
Architecture
![SelfridgesBhamFront](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/SelfridgesBhamFront.jpg)
Selfridge stores are known for architectural innovation and excellence, and are tourist destinations in their own right. The
original London store was designed by
Daniel Burnham
Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the '' Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been, "the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ...
, who also created the
Marshall Field's
Marshall Field & Company (commonly known as Marshall Field's) was an upscale department store in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in the 19th century, it grew to become a large chain before Macy's, Inc acquired it in 2005. Its eponymous founder, Mar ...
main store in his home town of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. Burnham was the leading American department store designer of the time and had works in Boston (Filenes's), New York (Gimbel's, Wanamaker's), and Philadelphia (Wanamaker's, his ''magnum opus'').
The London store was built in phases. The first phase consisted of only the nine-and-a-half bays closest to the
Duke Street corner,
and is an example of one of the earliest uses of steel cage frame construction for this type of building in London. This circumstance, according to the report of a contemporary London correspondent from the ''
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'', was largely responsible for making possible the eventual widespread use of Chicago’s
steel frame
Steel frame is a building technique with a "skeleton frame" of vertical steel columns and horizontal I-beams, constructed in a rectangular grid to support the floors, roof and walls of a building which are all attached to the frame. The developm ...
cage construction system in the United Kingdom.
A scheme to erect a massive tower above the store was never carried out.
Also involved in the design of the store were American architect Francis Swales, who worked on decorative details, and British architects
R. Frank Atkinson and
Thomas Smith Tait.
The distinctive polychrome sculpture above the Oxford Street entrance is the work of British sculptor
Gilbert Bayes
Gilbert William Bayes (4 April 1872 – 10 July 1953) was an English sculptor. His art works varied in scale from medals to large architectural clocks, monuments and equestrian statues and he was also a designer of some note, creating chess piec ...
.
''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' named Selfridges in London the world's best department store in 2010.
The Trafford store is noted for its use of stone and marble and for the exterior which strikingly resembles the London store. Each of the five floors of the Exchange Square store in central Manchester was designed by a different architect and has its own look and feel. In December 2009, store officials announced that the store will undergo a £40 million renovation to give it a more "iconic" look that has been associated with Selfridges. It has been announced the store will feature art installations using LED lighting that will be projected to the outside of the building at night.
The
Birmingham store, designed by
architect
An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
s
Future Systems
Future Systems was a London-based architectural and design practice, formerly headed by Directors Jan Kaplický and Amanda Levete.
Future Systems was founded by Kaplický and David Nixon after working with Denys Lasdun, Norman Foster, Renzo ...
, is covered in 15,000 spun
aluminium
Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. I ...
discs on a background of
Yves Klein Blue
Yves Klein Blue was an Australian indie rock band from Brisbane, which formed in 2005 and disbanded in 2010. The line-up included Chris Banham on Drum Kit, drums and percussion, Sean Cook on bass guitar, Charles Sale on lead guitar and Keyboard ...
.
Since it opened in 2003, the Birmingham store has been named every year by industry magazine
Retail Week
Retail Week is a London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England a ...
as one of the 100 stores to visit in the world.
The building is also included as a
desktop background
A wallpaper or background (also known as a desktop background, desktop picture or desktop image on computers) is a digital image (photo, drawing etc.) used as a decorative background of a graphical user interface on the screen of a computer, smar ...
in the Architecture theme in
Windows 7
Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...
.
Windows
![Selfridges windows](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Selfridges_windows.jpg)
Selfridges' windows have become synonymous also with the brand, and to a certain degree have become as famous as the company and
Oxford Street
Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and ...
location itself. Selfridges has a history of bold art initiatives when it comes to the window designs. Selfridge himself likened the act of shopping to the act of attending the theatre and encouraged his customers to make this connection as well by covering his show windows with silk curtains before dramatically unveiling the displays on opening day.
Just as they do today, the window designs served as the opening act of the entire play of the Selfridge experience and helped capture the public’s attention to transform customers into true shoppers. Later, when the building was undergoing restoration, the scaffolding was shrouded with a giant photograph of stars such as
Sir Elton John by
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha Louise Taylor-Johnson OBE ( née Taylor-Wood; 4 March 1967) is a British filmmaker and photographer. Her directorial feature film debut was 2009's '' Nowhere Boy'', a film based on the childhood experiences of The Beatles songwriter ...
. The windows consistently attract tourists, designers and fashionistas alike to marvel at the current designs and styling and fashion trends.
Since 2002, the windows have been photographed by London photographer Andrew Meredith and published in magazines such as ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
'', ''
Dwell'', ''
Icon
An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
'', ''
Frame
A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent.
Frame and FRAME may also refer to:
Physical objects
In building construction
*Framing (con ...
'', ''
Creative Review
''Creative Review'' is a bimonthly print magazine and website. The magazine focuses on commercial creativity, covering design, advertising, photography, branding, digital products, film, and gaming. The magazine is published bimonthly in print and ...
'', ''Hungarian Stylus Magazine'', ''
Design Week
''Design Week'' is a UK-based website, formerly a magazine for the design industry. It was first published in October 1986 by Centaur Communications. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations primary circulation for 2007 was 8,074. In 2011 ...
'', ''
Harper's Bazaar'', ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', ''WGSN'' as well as many worldwide media outlets, including the world wide press, journals, blogs and published books.
Opening day and marketing
The long lasting influence that Harry Selfridge would have on shopping and department stores became immediately clear with Selfridges' opening day. The store’s opening to much fanfare on 15 March 1909 laid the foundation for the success of the entire lifestyle that Selfridge aimed to promote. Even before the unveiling of the window displays, innovative marketing techniques set up the momentous occasion and the store for great success.
Harry Selfridge developed close relationships with the media to ensure that his store and its opening were properly publicized.
The opening week ad campaign relied mainly on unpaid promotions in the form of news articles in newspapers, magazines, and journals. As time progressed, Selfridge took the more traditional form of marketing by writing daily columns under the pen name
Callisthenes
Callisthenes of Olynthus (; grc-gre, Καλλισθένης; 360327 BCE) was a well-connected Greek historian in Macedon, who accompanied Alexander the Great during his Asiatic expedition. The philosopher Aristotle was Callisthenes's great ...
.
Overall, however, one of the most effective marketing tools proved to be the opening week cartoons focusing on the grand event. Selfridge enlisted the help of thirty-eight of London’s top illustrators to draw hundreds of full page, half page, and quarter page advertisements for eighteen newspapers.
This innovative combination of direct advertisements and newspaper publicities proved to be quite effective at drawing the crowds to the store.
The marketing continued on opening day itself. Touted as “London’s Greatest Store,” Selfridges immediately became a cultural and social phenomenon. From the store's soft lighting to the general absence of price tags to live music from string quartets, every detail of the opening was purposeful to draw people into the entire shopping experience and make each shopper feel unique.
At Selfridges, shoppers entered another world in which they became "guests," as the store referred to them, and could purchase unique items that differed from the material goods sold in other stores.
The successes of the marketing campaign and the store’s opening day highlight that Selfridges sold an entire lifestyle, not just an impressive array of material products.
Controversies
* After protests by
animal welfare advocates, in November 2009 Selfridges agreed to stop selling
foie gras
Foie gras (, ; ) is a specialty food product made of the liver of a duck or goose. According to French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by gavage (force feeding).
Foie gras is a popular and well-known delica ...
(a delicacy made from the livers of forcibly fattened ducks and geese).
* In July 2010, Selfridges apologized publicly after its Manchester store displayed an
Alexander McQueen
Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashio ...
garment hanging from a gallows-like structure, just months after the designer committed
suicide by hanging
Suicide by hanging is the intentional killing of oneself (suicide) via suspension from an anchor-point such as an overhead beam or hook, by a rope or cord or by jumping from a height with a noose around the neck.
Hanging is often considered ...
.
* In September 2013, the store suspended a shop assistant who refused to serve a friend of
Tommy Robinson.
* In February 2015, one of Selfridges' stores in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
installed so-called
anti-homeless spikes Anti-homelessness can mean:
* Attempts to help homeless people overcome the problem of homelessness
Homelessness or houselessness – also known as a state of being unhoused or unsheltered – is the condition of lacking stable, safe, and a ...
.
In culture
ITV and
Masterpiece produced a series entitled ''
Mr Selfridge
''Mr Selfridge'' is a British period drama television series about Harry Gordon Selfridge and his department store, Selfridge & Co, in London, set from 1908 to 1928. It was co-produced by ITV Studios and Masterpiece/WGBH for broadcast on IT ...
'', first airing on ITV beginning in January 2013 (in ten parts), and later on
PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...
starting on 30 March 2013 (in eight parts).
ITV began airing ten additional episodes in January 2014.
The fourth series began in 2016 with the first episode airing on 8 January 2016.
Selfridges was also featured in the 2017 movie ''
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...
'' as the shop where
Steve Trevor
General Steven Rockwell Trevor is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with the superhero Wonder Woman. The character was created by William Moulton Marston and first appeared in ...
takes
Diana Prince to give her a more contemporary appearance to blend in.
The brand has worked with artists like
Jaden Smith
Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born July 8, 1998), also known mononymously as Jaden, is an American rapper, singer, and actor. He has received various accolades, including a Teen Choice Award, an MTV Movie Award, a BET Award and a Young Artis ...
and others throughout its history.
References
Further reading
* Honeycombe, Gordon. ''Selfridges, Seventy-Five Years: The Story of the Store 1909–84''. London, 1984. .
External links
Selfridges websiteSelfridges Group website
{{Authority control
1908 establishments in England
Department stores of the United Kingdom
Food halls
Oxford Street
Portman estate
Retail companies of the United Kingdom
Retail companies established in 1908
Weston family
2022 mergers and acquisitions