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A great read and coming in 2013 a ten part series on ITV.
It’s going to be Downton Abbey with shopping!
End Retail lavished extravagant gifts on all of his ladies
even providing a second cabin on a transatlantic crossing
for the vast collection of feathered headdresses and hats that
travelled with his French mistress. He had lived in clover
in Berkeley Square but he died penniless in Putney.
Opening day at Selfridges on Oxford Street 15 March 1909
Mile-a-Minute Harry to retire. He packed his bags and
came to London where he spent £400,000 on the Oxford
Street store.
Invitations were sent to everyone who was anyone in
booming Edwardian London and he spent a record
£36,000 on advertising in 18 national newspapers -
that’s £2.5 million at today’s prices. On 15 March 1909
at 9.00am exactly a bugler played a fanfare from a first
floor balcony and huge ruched curtains were raised on
21 windows to reveal fashion displays inspired by the
French artists Watteau and Fragonard. Selfridges broke
the mould by encouraging browsing. Shopping was now
to be a leisure activity. He was cleverly tapping into and
encouraging new freedoms enjoyed by middle class
women who could come and shop, dine, relax in the
library or even play crazy golf on the roof. It caused huge
excitement.
On opening day 90,000 people came spending between
them …… £3,000! That’s an average of just threepence
each. The top sellers in Selfridges 1909 included a
“restaurant” or “bridge” gown in soft shades of satin,
parlour maids aprons, peanut brittle and cashmere
knickers with elastic at the waist and knee. Oxford Street
in 1909 was a dirty, smelly thoroughfare, not least
because of the amount of manure (Mucha Mierda)
emanating from all the horse traffic. Ever the ideas man
Selfridge devised a solution to the problem by placing
an array of perfume counters just inside the entrance to
conquer the stink of London’s streets.
Unfortunately Harry Selfridge was a terrible gambler and
philanderer, carrying on at one time with the wife of the
pharmaceuticals millionaire Henry Wellcome. He had a
particular penchant for dancers squiring Isadora Duncan,
Anna Pavlova and The Dolly Sisters – alluring showgirl
twins from the Ziegfeld Follies (gold diggers both) who
were the Cheeky Girls of their day. The King of West