Qualla: Selfridges flagship store

Selfridges flagship store: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Txllxt TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0. To reach Selfridges in the early years, you dialled 1. Just the number one. Harry Gordon Selfridge had persuaded the General Post Office to give him the simplest phone number anyone could imagine, and customers picked up their receivers and asked the operator for number 1 to be connected to his store's switchboard. The audacity of the gesture was the whole point. Selfridges opened on 15 March 1909 employing 1,400 staff in a Beaux-Arts palace designed by the Chicago architect Daniel Burnham, on what had been considered an unfashionable end of Oxford Street. Selfridge had assembled the site by quietly buying up a block of Georgian buildings bounded by Somerset, Wigmore, Orchard, and Duke Streets. By the time the building opened, the unfashionable end of Oxford Street had been replanted as the most ambitious department store London had ever seen.

Image: Txllxt TxllxT | CC BY-SA 4.0

Selfridges flagship store: Shopping as Leisure

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Selfridge believed that shopping was a form of entertainment, and he built a store designed to extend visits rather than rush customers through. The original 1909 building had five storeys above ground, three basement levels, and a roof terrace, with 100 departments planned. Faci...

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Selfridges flagship store: The Architects of the Frontispiece

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ham, CC BY-SA 3.0. Daniel Burnham, who had designed Chicago's Flatiron and Marshall Field's, drew the master plan. The Beaux-Arts frontispiece on Oxford Street, with its giant Ionic columns rising the full height of the facade, was designed by the American architect Francis Swales, who had trained ...

Image: Ham | CC BY-SA 3.0

Selfridges flagship store: Rooftop Cocktails and a Gun Club

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit David Castor (dcastor), Public domain. The roof terrace was the place Londoners went after shopping. Terraced gardens, cafes, and a mini golf course covered the roof, with views across central London. There was also, improbably, an all-girl gun club. Fashion shows were staged up there, and strolling on the roof became...

Image: David Castor (dcastor) | Public domain

Selfridges flagship store: Eisenhower in the Basement

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jordiferrer, CC BY-SA 4.0. During the Second World War, from 1942 after the United States entered the conflict, one of the deepest sub-basements at Selfridges was given over to the United States Army. The reason was practical: the building had one of the few secure telex lines in London, it was safe from G...

Image: Jordiferrer | CC BY-SA 4.0

Selfridges flagship store: Bombs, Bombs, Bombs

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rept0n1x, CC BY-SA 3.0. The store suffered serious damage during the London Blitz that began on 7 September 1940 and continued through fifty-seven nights, and again in 1941 and 1944. On the night of 17/18 September 1940, a combined Luftwaffe force of 268 Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 bombers attacked...

Image: Rept0n1x | CC BY-SA 3.0