When Selfridges opened on Oxford Street in 1909, it offered more than a new place to shop. Its American founder, Harry Gordon Selfridge, set out to make shopping an event: a visit could mean looking at elaborate displays, enjoying the building and its entertainments, and browsing goods arranged for customers to examine. That theatrical approach helped turn a London department store into a social destination. Its history since then has included provincial expansion, successive changes of ownership and a distinctive place in the capital’s public culture.
A store designed to draw people in
Harry Gordon Selfridge was an American retailer who had worked at Marshall Field’s in Chicago before establishing his London business. The Oxford Street flagship, at 400 Oxford Street in Marylebone, opened on 15 March 1909. Designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, it was built in stages; its first section was among the early uses of steel-cage construction for this kind of building in London. American architect Francis Swales worked on decorative details, while British architects R. Frank Atkinson and Thomas Smith Tait also contributed. The sculptural work above the Oxford Street entrance was made by British sculptor Gilbert Bayes.
Selfridge’s approach treated the shop floor and the street outside as parts of the same experience. Merchandise was put on display for customers to handle and consider, while the store’s windows turned shopping into something to watch. Selfridge used silk curtains to conceal displays before their unveiling, borrowing the anticipation and reveal of a theatrical performance. The store also promoted itself through newspaper advertising, illustrations and public attention. Opening-week advertisements emphasised its scale and amenities, including electric lifts, sales staff and departments, as well as services offered to visitors whether or not they bought anything.
The often-repeated phrase “the customer is always right” is popularly attributed either to Selfridge or to Marshall Field, so its origin is not certain in the supplied account. What is clear is the importance Selfridge placed on making customers feel welcome and on presenting shopping as leisure rather than a chore. The Oxford Street store made that idea visible in its layout, displays and publicity.
Windows, rooftops and public spectacle
Selfridges’ windows became a continuing feature of Oxford Street’s visual life. Their designs have included work associated with artists and designers, and the displays have drawn attention beyond the store’s customers. In 2014, a Christmas window featured a Paddington Bear design by Kate Moss; the associated “Goldie Bear” statue was auctioned to raise money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The building itself has also been used as a canvas: during restoration, its scaffolding was covered by a large photograph of stars by Sam Taylor-Wood.
The store’s public appeal was not confined to its pavement or shop floors. During the 1920s and 1930s, its roof included gardens, cafés, a mini-golf course and an all-girl gun club, and was used for fashion shows. Later rooftop events revived that tradition of turning the building into a place for entertainment as well as retail. In 2009, a temporary restaurant opened on the roof; later events included a boating lake and a tea-and-golf attraction.
Selfridges also hosted events that brought technology and public life into the store. In 1909, Louis Blériot’s Blériot XI monoplane was displayed there after his cross-Channel flight, attracting large crowds. In 1925, John Logie Baird made a public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television from the building. During the Second World War, the basement served as an air-raid shelter. From 1943, it also housed the SIGSALY scrambling apparatus used to secure transatlantic conferences between American and British officials. These episodes show a department store functioning as exhibition space, refuge and part of wartime communications infrastructure.
From a London flagship to a national chain
Selfridges’ ownership and reach changed repeatedly. The business established Selfridge Provincial Stores in 1926 and expanded into a group of provincial stores, which were sold to the John Lewis Partnership in 1940. The Oxford Street store was acquired by Liverpool retailer Lewis’s in 1951. In 1965, Lewis’s and Selfridges came under the Sears Group, owned by Charles Clore. The business later separated Selfridges from Lewis’s, and the brand’s expansion beyond London gathered pace in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
A store opened at the Trafford Centre in Greater Manchester in 1998, followed by a Manchester city-centre branch at Exchange Square in 2002 and a Birmingham store at the Bullring in 2003. The Birmingham building, designed by Future Systems, is clad in spun aluminium discs against a blue background and became a prominent contrast to the traditional Oxford Street façade. These three branches, alongside the London flagship, made up the four-store chain recorded in the supplied Wikipedia article for 2024.
In 2003, Canadian retailer Galen Weston acquired the chain for £598 million and invested in refurbishing the Oxford Street store. The Weston family later agreed to sell the majority of Selfridges Group to a joint venture between Thailand’s Central Group and Austria’s Signa Holding. The acquisition was completed in 2022. Following Signa’s financial collapse, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund acquired its shares; the supplied account states that Central Group and the fund became co-owners, with respective stakes of 60 and 40 per cent. The history is therefore not one of continuous Weston family ownership, as older descriptions of the business can suggest.
Retail, culture and changing expectations
The Oxford Street store’s influence has rested partly on its ability to make retail visible and discussable. Its displays, events and architecture invite attention from people who may be passing through the area as well as from customers. Selfridges has also appeared in popular culture: the television drama Mr Selfridge ran from 2013 to 2016, and the store featured in the 2017 film Wonder Woman. These appearances extend the public image of Selfridges beyond its function as a retailer.
The company has also responded to changing ideas about how goods are bought and used. In 2020, during a difficult period for UK retail, Selfridges partnered with the fashion-rental platform HURR to offer 100 items from more than 40 brands for hire. The imported article describes Project Earth as a sustainability initiative, but the supplied Wikipedia text does not provide details with which to substantiate its scope or results; this feature therefore does not present broad environmental achievements as established fact. The distinction matters: a programme’s stated purpose is not, by itself, evidence of its impact.
Nor has the store’s history been free of criticism. In 2009, following protests from animal-welfare advocates, Selfridges agreed to stop selling foie gras. In 2010, its Manchester store apologised after displaying an Alexander McQueen garment on a gallows-like structure, shortly after the designer’s death by hanging. In 2015, one of its Manchester stores installed anti-homeless spikes. These incidents complicate any simple account of the company as an unqualified cultural benefactor, and underline that a prominent public-facing retailer is judged by more than its architecture and marketing.
Why Selfridges deserves a place in British Legacy
Selfridges deserves a place in British Legacy because its story is closely tied to the changing experience of shopping in Britain. Founded by an American entrepreneur, the Oxford Street store adapted ideas about display, publicity and leisure to a prominent London setting. It encouraged people to look as well as buy: its windows made the street part of the store’s audience, while its roof gardens, exhibitions and public demonstrations gave the building uses beyond ordinary retail. Its opening also helped establish a model in which customer experience, spectacle and commercial activity were deliberately joined.
That influence is visible in the store’s long public life, from the arrival of Blériot’s aeroplane and Baird’s television demonstration to its evolving windows, architecture and entertainment. Selfridges has also become a chain beyond London, with branches in Greater Manchester and Birmingham, and its ownership history reflects the international forces that have shaped modern British retail. Its legacy should not be reduced to luxury or treated as uncomplicated praise: the record includes contested decisions as well as invention and spectacle. But as a department store that made itself part of the city’s cultural landscape, Selfridges offers a specific example of how retail can shape public space and popular expectations in Britain.
Sources
Adapted in part from Selfridges by Wikipedia contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Text has been edited and combined with the existing article; this adapted text is shared under the same licence. Contributor history.