Selfridges, Selfridge & Co, Oxford Street, Londres, Inglaterra

Selfridges, Selfridge & Co, Oxford Street, Londres, Inglaterra
Londres - Inglaterra
Fotografia - Cartão Postal

Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores 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 in 1908. The flagship store on London's Oxford Street is the second largest shop in the UK (after Harrods) and opened 15 March 1909. Other Selfridges stores opened in the Trafford Centre (1998) and Exchange Square (2002) in Manchester, and in the Bullring in Birmingham (2003).

In the 1940s, smaller provincial Selfridges stores were sold to the John Lewis Partnership, and in 1951, the original Oxford Street store was acquired by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores. Lewis's and Selfridges were then taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group, owned by Charles Clore. Expanded under the Sears Group to include branches in Manchester and Birmingham, the chain was acquired in 2003 by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million.

The shop's early history was dramatised in ITV's 2013 series, Mr Selfridge.

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 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 is popularly held to have coined the phrase "the customer is always right", and Selfridge used it regularly in his advertising.

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 was put on display at Selfridges, where it was seen by 12,000 people. John Logie Baird made the first public demonstration of moving silhouette images by television 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. The store was bombed but survived comparatively unscathed except for the famous roof gardens, which were destroyed and not reopened until 2009.

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 huge SIGSALY scrambling apparatus, by which transatlantic conferences between American and British officials (most notably Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt) were secured against eavesdropping, was housed in the basement from 1943 on, with extension to the Cabinet War Rooms about a mile away.

In 1926, Selfridges set up the Selfridge Provincial Stores company, which had expanded over the years to include sixteen provincial stores, but these were sold to the John Lewis Partnership in 1940. The Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores acquired the remaining Oxford Street Shop in 1951, until it was taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group, owned by Charles Clore. 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 store and Selfridges' demerger from Sears.

In September 1998, Selfridges expanded and opened a department store in the newly-opened Trafford Centre in Greater Manchester. Following its success, Selfridges announced they would open an additional 125,000-square-foot (11,600 m2) store in Exchange Square, Manchester city centre. The Exchange Square store opened in 2002 as Manchester city centre started to return to normal following the 1996 Manchester bombing. A 260,000-square-foot (24,000 m2) store opened in 2003 in Birmingham's Bull Ring.

In 2003, the chain was acquired by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million and became part of Selfridges Group, which also includes Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland, Holt Renfrew in Canada and de Bijenkorf 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 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.

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, who also created the Marshall Field's main store in his home town of Chicago. 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, was largely responsible for making possible the eventual widespread use of Chicago’s steel frame cage construction system in the United Kingdom. “Under the pressure of [Mr. Selfridge] and the interests allied with him, the councilors admitted the soundness of American building methods and framed a bill which will be pressed at once in parliament [sic] to permit these methods to be used here.”. 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.
The Daily Telegraph 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 architects Future Systems, is covered in 15,000 spun aluminium discs on a background of Yves Klein Blue. Since it opened in 2003, the Birmingham store has been named every year by industry magazine Retail Week as one of the 100 stores to visit in the world. The building is also included as a desktop background in the Architecture theme in Windows 7.

Selfridges' windows have become synonymous also with the brand, and to a certain degree have become as famous as the company and Oxford Street 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 theater 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. 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, Dwell, Icon, Frame, Creative Review, Hungarian Stylus Magazine, Design Week, Harper's Bazaar, The New York Times, WGSN as well as many worldwide media outlets, including the world wide press, journals, blogs and published books.

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. 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.

Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (11 January 1858 – 8 May 1947) was an American-British 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 retail magnates in the United Kingdom. He was known as the 'Earl of Oxford Street'.

Born in Ripon, Wisconsin, Selfridge delivered newspapers and left school at 14 when he found work at a bank in Jackson, Michigan. After a series of jobs, Selfridge found a position at Marshall Field's in Chicago, where he stayed for the next 25 years.

In 1890, he married Rose Buckingham, of the prominent Chicago Buckingham family.

In 1906, following a trip to London, Selfridge invested £400,000 in his own department store in what was then the unfashionable western end of Oxford Street. The new store opened to the public on 15 March 1909, and Selfridge remained chairman until he retired in 1941. In 1947, he died of bronchial pneumonia at age 89.

Selfridge was born to Robert Oliver Selfridge and Lois Frances Selfridge (née Baxter) in Ripon, Wisconsin, on 11 January 1858, one of three boys. Within months of his birth, the family moved to Jackson, Michigan, as his father had acquired the town's general store. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, his father joined the Union Army. He rose to the rank of major, before being honorably discharged. However, he abandoned his family, not returning home after the war ended.

This left his wife Lois to bring up three young boys. Selfridge's two brothers died at a very young age shortly after the war ended, so Harry became his mother's only child. She found work as a schoolteacher and struggled financially to support both of them. She supplemented her low income by painting greeting cards, and eventually became headmistress of Jackson High School. Selfridge and his mother enjoyed each other's company and were good friends; they lived together all their lives.

At the age of 10, Selfridge began to contribute to the family income by delivering newspapers. Aged 12, he started working at the Leonard Field's dry-goods store. This allowed him to fund the creation of a boys' monthly magazine with schoolfriend Peter Loomis, making money from the advertising carried within.

Selfridge left school at 14 and found work at a bank in Jackson. After failing his entrance examinations to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, Selfridge became a bookkeeper at the local furniture factory of Gilbert, Ransom & Knapp. However, the company closed four months later, and Selfridge moved to Grand Rapids to work in the insurance industry.

In 1876, his ex-employer, Leonard Field, agreed to write Selfridge a letter of introduction to Marshall Field in Chicago, who was a senior partner in Field, Leiter & Company, one of the most successful stores in the city (which became Marshall Field and Company, and, after a series of acquisitions beginning in 1882, became part of Macy's in 2005). Initially employed as a stock boy in the wholesale department, over the following 25 years, Selfridge worked his way up. He was eventually appointed a junior partner, married Rosalie Buckingham (of the prominent Chicago Buckinghams) and amassed a considerable personal fortune.

After their marriage, the couple lived for some time with Rose's mother on Rush Street in Chicago. They later moved to their own house on Lake Shore Drive. The Selfridges also built an imposing mansion called Harrose Hall in mock Tudor style on Geneva Lake in Wisconsin, complete with large greenhouses and extensive rose gardens. Over the next decade, the couple had five children:

Chandler Selfridge (b and d 7 August 1891)

Rosalie Selfridge (10 September 1893-October 1977) - she married Serge Vincent de Bolotoff, Prince Wiasemsky on 7 August 1918.

Violette Selfridge (5 June 1897-1996) - she married Jacques Jean de Sibour on 4 May 1921 and they were divorced in February 1949.

Gordon Selfridge (2 April 1900-30 November 1976) - he married Charlotte Elsie Dennis on 10 June 1940.

Beatrice Selfridge (30 July 1901-1990) - she married twice; first to Comte Louis de Sibour and then to Frank L. Lewis

Throughout their married life, Harry's mother, Lois, lived with the family. While at Marshall Field, Selfridge was the first to promote Christmas sales with the phrase "Only _____ Shopping Days Until Christmas", a catchphrase that was quickly picked up by retailers in other markets. Either he or Marshall Field is also credited with popularizing the phrase "The customer is always right."

In 1904, Harry opened his own department store called Harry G. Selfridge and Co. in Chicago. However, after only two months he sold the store at a profit to Carson, Pirie and Co. He then decided to retire, and for the next two years pottered around his properties, mainly Harrose Hall. He also bought a steam yacht, which he rarely used, and played golf.

In 1906, when Selfridge travelled to London on holiday with his wife, he noticed that although the city was a cultural and commercial leader, its stores could not rival Field's in Chicago or the great galleries of Parisian department stores.

Recognizing a gap in the market, Selfridge, who had become bored with retirement, decided to invest £400,000 in a new department store of his own, locating it in what was then the unfashionable western end of London's Oxford Street but which was opposite an entrance to the Bond Street tube station. The new store opened to the public on 15 March 1909, setting new standards for the retailing business.

Selfridge promoted the radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity. The store was extensively promoted through advertising. The shop floors were structured so that goods could be made more accessible to customers. There were elegant restaurants with modest prices, a library, reading and writing rooms, special reception rooms for French, German, American and "Colonial" customers, a First Aid Room, and a Silence Room, with soft lights, deep chairs, and double-glazing, all intended to keep customers in the store as long as possible. Staff members were taught to be on hand to assist customers, but not too aggressively, and to sell the merchandise. Oliver Lyttelton observed that, when one called on Selfridge, he would have nothing on his desk except one's letter, smoothed and ironed.

Selfridge also managed to obtain from the GPO the privilege of having the number "1" as its own phone number, so anybody had to just ask the operator for Gerrard 1 to be connected to Selfridge's operators. In 1909, Selfridge proposed a subway link to Bond Street station; however, contemporaneous opposition quashed the idea.

Selfridge's prospered during World War I and up to the mid-1930s. The Great Depression was already taking its toll on Selfridge's retail business and his lavish spending had run up a £150,000 debt to his store. He became a British subject in 1937. By 1940, he owed £250,000 in taxes and was in debt to the bank. The Selfridges board forced him out in 1941. In 1951, the original Oxford Street Selfridges was acquired by the Liverpool-based Lewis's chain of department stores, which was in turn taken over in 1965 by the Sears Group owned by Charles Clore. Expanded under the Sears group to include branches in Manchester and Birmingham, in 2003 the chain was acquired by Canada's Galen Weston for £598 million.

In 1890, Selfridge married Rosalie "Rose" Buckingham of the prominent Buckingham family of Chicago. Her father was Benjamin Hale Buckingham, who was a member of a very successful family business established by her grandfather, Alvah Buckingham. A 30-year-old successful property developer, she had inherited money and expertise from her family. Rose had purchased land in Harper Ave, Hyde Park, Chicago and built 42 villas and artists cottages within a landscaped environment. The couple had five children: three girls and two boys.

At the height of his success, Selfridge leased Highcliffe Castle in Hampshire, from Major General Edward James Montagu-Stuart-Wortley. In addition, he purchased Hengistbury Head, a mile-long promontory on England's southern coast, where he planned to build a magnificent castle; these plans never got off the drawing board, however, and in 1930 the Head was put up for sale. Although only a tenant at Highcliffe, he set about fitting modern bathrooms, installing steam central heating and building and equipping a modern kitchen. During World War I, Rose opened a tented retreat called the Mrs Gordon Selfridge Convalescent Camp for American Soldiers on the castle grounds. Selfridge gave up the lease in 1922.

Selfridge's wife Rose died during the influenza pandemic of 1918; his mother died in 1924. As a widower, Selfridge had numerous liaisons, including those with the celebrated Dolly Sisters and the divorcée Syrie Barnardo Wellcome, who would later become better known as the decorator Syrie Maugham. He also began and maintained a busy social life and entertained lavishly both at his home in Lansdowne House, located at 9 Fitzmaurice Place, Mayfair, just off Berkeley Square, and on his private yacht, the SY Conqueror, with VIP guests such as Rudyard Kipling cruising the Mediterranean. Lansdowne House displays a blue plaque noting that Gordon Selfridge lived there from 1921 to 1929.

During the years of the Great Depression, Selfridge's fortune rapidly declined and then disappeared—a situation not helped by his free-spending ways. He gambled frequently and often lost. He also spent money on various showgirls.

On 8 May 1947, Selfridge died of bronchial pneumonia at his home in Putney, south-west London, aged 89. His funeral was held on 12 May at St. Mark's Church in Highcliffe, after which he was buried in St Mark's Churchyard next to his wife and his mother.

Selfridge's children were Chandler, who died shortly after birth; Rosalie, who married Serge de Bolotoff, later Wiasemsky; Violette (who wrote the book Flying gypsies: the chronicle of a 10,000 mile air vagabondage and married first Vicomte Jacques Jean de Sibour and second Frederick T. Bedford); Harry Jr. "Gordon"; and Beatrice.

Selfridge's grandson, Oliver, who died in 2008, became a pioneer in artificial intelligence. His grandson Ralph, who also died in 2008, was a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Florida from 1961 to 2002 and was called by many "the grandfather of digital simulation."

Selfridge wrote a book , The Romance of Commerce, published by John Lane—The Bodley Head, in 1918, but actually written several years prior. In it are chapters on ancient commerce, China, Greece, Venice, Lorenzo de' Medici, the Fugger family, the Hanseatic League, fairs, guilds, early British commerce, trade and the Tudors, the East India Company, north England's merchants, the growth of trade, trade and the aristocracy, Hudson's Bay Company, Japan, and representative businesses of the 20th century.

Among the more popular quotations attributed to Selfridge:

"People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice."

"The boss drives his men; the leader coaches them."

"The boss depends upon authority, the leader on goodwill."

"The boss inspires fear; the leader inspires enthusiasm."

"The boss says 'I'; the leader, 'we'."

"The boss fixes the blame for the breakdown; the leader fixes the breakdown."

"The boss knows how it is done; the leader shows how."

"The boss says 'Go'; the leader says 'Let's go!'"

"The customer is always right."