1

Making beauty big business

Harry was the first to bring beauty products to the front of a department store. He wanted women to try the products rather than them being hidden behind a counter and, rumour has it, the perfumes helped mask the scent from horses and carts on a busy Oxford Street!

2

Making a spectacle

Today, Selfridges’ window displays are famous across the world, but back in the early 1900s the theatricality, scale and even the fact that these were the first store windows to be lit at night meant crowds gathered around them at all times of the day.

3

Championing women's rights

Harry Gordon Selfridge was a big supporter of women's rights, creating window displays that supported the Suffragettes. He even (can you believe it?!) created the first toilets for women in a department store.
 

4

The theatre of retail

Live music, dancing and amazing interactive displays: Harry Gordon Selfridge brought true theatre to our shopping experience. On the Lower Ground you can visit Dolly’s Café, named after the Dolly Sisters who performed in store (and wooed Harry himself!).

We're famous for our yellow carrier bag – but how did yellow become so synonymous with Selfridges? Well, like every great love story, this one started with a rose – a yellow one, to be precise. 
The Selfridges rose variety was first grown to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Selfridges in 1984, with roses planted in nearby Hyde Park (aka our favourite lunchtime picnic spot). Our founder, Harry Gordon Selfridge, was a keen gardener and called the rose ‘the emblem of the house of Selfridge’ (many hubbie brownie points there, we imagine, as his wife was also called Rose). It wasn’t until the early 1990s that the Selfridges yellow carrier bag first became the It-bag for all, making this bright and buoyant colour synonymous with Selfridges. 

Harry Gordon Selfridge was known as 'the showman of shopping', exhibiting the first plane to fly over the Channel and placing an ice rink and shooting range on the roof (completely safe, we're sure!). And, today, the theatrics are as eyebrow-raising as ever – over the past few years we’ve hosted performances by east London’s renowned party starters, Sink The Pink (including a set that recreated a traditional London pub), a Shakespearean theatre, a boating lake and mini golf course on the roof, and a state-of-the-art music venue. Why? Because what greater luxury is there than a brilliant memory shared between friends? 

We are proud to champion renowned and upcoming artists in our stores and we continue to commission artworks to share with our customers, including the new Selfridges Art Block in our Accessories Hall in London, which will showcase a different installation every six months. Some of our favourite previous art collaborations include Chinese artist Song Dong's edible installation made entirely of biscuits in 2006; Spencer Tunick's 'body sculpture', featuring hundreds of naked individuals (including some brave Selfridges team members) standing on our escalators in 2003; Yayoi Kusama's polka-dot store takeover in 2012; and Kate Daudy’s ‘psychological map of London’ made in 2017.

Back in the day, Harry Gordon Selfridge was a big supporter of the Suffragettes, creating window displays championing the cause (in fact, Selfridges was one of the only stores on Oxford Street not to have its windows smashed by the Suffragettes). Today, Selfridges continues to support causes it believes in. Take Project Ocean, for example. As part of this long-term project to help protect our precious oceans from over-fishing and plastic pollution, we have removed all endangered fish, beauty products containing plastic microbeads and single-use plastic water and fizzy drink bottles from our stores. Oh, and did we mention Selfridges has its own 50-hectare marine reserve in the Philippines? We're still trying to work out a feasible work-related reason for why we need to visit…

In our book, no shopping trip is truly complete without a slice of cake or perhaps a glass of champagne – shopping is ever-so tiring, right? From The Brass Rail, which has been serving up tasty salt beef dishes in our London Foodhall for over 50 years, to a brilliantly British afternoon tea at one of our cafés or an indulgent meal at our rooftop restaurant, we know how to dine in style. And in some very exciting (not to mention hunger-inducing news), we will be opening an amazing new restaurant in the façade of our new Duke Street entrance later this year, featuring vaulted ceilings, an incredible design and truly extraordinary food.