Selfridges

Don't be fooled into thinking that this huge department store is simply a Mecca for commercialism and shopaholics. Selfridges has a truly fascinating history that supports its excellent reputation for providing a huge range of high quality goods. Emphasising the ethos that "shopping should be fun", the stores original founder, US entrepreneur Harry Gordon Selfridge, defined the shop's hands-on, theatrical image that has endured since its opening in 1909. A lover of all things scientific, unusual exhibits were often used to attract and amaze customers - John Logie Baird carried out his first public demonstration of television from the first floor of the store in 1925, it was in Selfridges that 12,000 people viewed the monoplane used to complete the first cross-Channel flight, while a seismograph installed on the third floor, recorded tremors from the Belgian earthquake in 1938. This tradition for unique displays and unusual exhibitions continues to this day and is a major reason to visit the store. Selfridges' ever-changing window displays always attract immense interest and are consistently groundbreaking and often controversial - one of the most bizarre has to be the series of Japanese-inspired characters used to depict scenes from TV dating shows, which in turn encouraged shoppers to record their own personal video ad in one of the dating pods located in-store. Scores of excellent clothes retailers, a superb Food Hall, and a number of first class restaurants all under one roof make Selfridges, understandably, the biggest draw on Oxford Street.