Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge (12 page)

The partners settled on a site towards what was at that time the ‘dead end’ of Oxford Street, where Waring owned some properties he was prepared to see demolished. Selfridge saw the potential of the site immediately. It was conveniently placed for the mansions of Portman Square, near enough to the fashionable
demi-monde
residents of St John’s Wood, and ideally placed to capture the public travelling on the Central Line which, having opened six years earlier, now carried 100,000 people a day between Shepherd’s Bush and Bank. With stations at Holland Park, Notting Hill Gate, Queen’s Road (renamed Queensway in 1946), Lancaster Gate, Marble Arch, Bond Street, Oxford Circus and beyond to St Paul’s, the Central Line was the dream line for West End retailers.

From the very beginning, Selfridge visualized his store as stretching
from Duke Street to Orchard Street – as it does today – although he had to wait until 1928 until that happened. But he also hoped it would reach right back to Wigmore Street, forming a double island site. To begin with, however, he had to make do with what they could get, which meant acquiring the leases of the adjoining jumble of small shops, tenement housing and a much-loved local pub, the Hope Arms, adjacent to some run-down warehouses and a busy stable-yard on the corner of Duke Street. Above all, they needed the consent of the landowners, the Portman Estate, as well as planning permission from St Marylebone Council. There was an enormous furore when plans were announced. From the fuss the locals made – especially those who drank in the Hope Arms – one would have thought Harry Selfridge was demolishing Buckingham Palace. Instead, he planned to build a palace of his own.

Selfridge moved into offices on the opposite side of the road at 415 Oxford Street and started to plan his development. He was never happier than when poring over architectural drawings. When it came to turning them into reality, however, he faced obstacles on a daily basis. He was used to the speed of Chicago where building regulations and permissions were quickly settled with a handshake – albeit one often accompanied by a wad of money. Now he had to face London’s ponderous bureaucrats.

Selfridge was his own project manager, beating a regular path to see both the Chairman of the St Marylebone Borough Council works committee, Edward Hughes, and his colleague, the district surveyor Mr Ashbridge. Turning on the full power of his affability and charm, Selfridge impressed them enormously, particularly as he attended each meeting in person. Hughes would later say: ‘He would bring his persuasive powers to bear and he often succeeded in convincing us that his was the correct view.’

Selfridge’s original concept was a neoclassical six-storey building with a dramatic central tower. The first drawings were prepared by a young American trainee architect called Francis Swales, who had studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and served as an intern at
the offices of the revered Jean-Louis Pascal. Selfridge, enchanted with the result, carried the drawings with him everywhere. ‘I fingered them so frequently that they got dog-eared. I had frontal elevations and side elevations and floor maps – I couldn’t bear to be parted from them. The result was I almost wore away the pockets of every suit I possessed.’ Copies of the beautiful drawings by Swaleswere sent to Daniel Burnham in Chicago, who was retained as the originating architect.

Busy completing an impressive new twelve-storey store for John Wanamaker in Philadelphia, Burnham was not told that planning restrictions in London at the time forbade any building higher than a modest 80 feet from pavement level. Burnham’s elevations were proudly presented to the council – who promptly rejected them. The reaction back at the great man’s office was predictable. Young Mr Swales was quickly replaced by the London-based architect Robert Atkinson, who was well versed in the ‘Chicago School’ having worked in America but who also knew enough about the complexities of London planning regulations not to make any more expensive mistakes. Out went the six floors and tower and in came an 80-foot-high building with five vast upper floors and a deep basement that would provide additional trading space beneath them. Selfridge now had the best team of architects that money could buy. The trouble was his money was running out.

It had cost a lot – in excess of $500,000 – to get to the starting-block. Buying out the leases of surrounding properties had been much harder, and taken far longer, than Selfridge had thought possible. It had also been expensive, yet at no time did Samuel Waring put his hand in his pocket. All the money was Harry’s, and he was feeling the strain. Not that anyone could tell. He smiled, joked, hosted dinners, went to the theatre and commuted to America to see his family. The publisher Charles H. Doran met Selfridge several times on transatlantic voyages during that period. Selfridge was delighted to be in the company of a fellow American who listened patiently to his new friend’s woes about archaic planning laws and complex fire regulations.

After what Selfridge himself described as ‘an interminable time spent in lawyers’ offices’ and nearly a year after Selfridge & Waring was formed, the site was finally cleared and excavations began. The foundations were dug deep enough to support extra floors or even his tower should regulations change, and Harry Selfridge dug deeper into his pockets to pay for it all. Still Sam Waring hadn’t parted with a penny. He was even making money from Selfridge, who had by now cashed in one of his last remaining assets, selling his Lake Shore Drive house. Harry had also donated his precious orchid collection to Chicago’s Lincoln Park and had moved his family to England, where they leased Waring’s magnificent country estate, Footscray, in Sidcup, Kent.

Waring & Gillow were commissioned to make Harry an imposing desk, but the building programme was so slow Selfridge began to doubt he would ever have an office in which to put it. One chilly November day, in a move intended to obtain publicity as much as to inspire progress, Selfridge arranged for a band to play outside the building site. For months now he had talked to the press about his plans – how exciting they were, how big the store was going to be, how daring it was. His ‘music while you work’, however, succeeded in making headlines of the wrong sort. The police arrived, claiming that the band was creating a public nuisance, and ordered it to stop playing.

For Sam Waring, it was the last straw. From the beginning he had baulked at the scale of his partner’s plans. When he first saw the drawings he offended Selfridge by asking if it was to be a shop or a Greek temple. Some of his frustration is understandable. As Harry’s grandiose schemes progressed, the various architects produced over 12,000 blueprints. For Waring, the project was becoming more trouble than it was worth. The relationship between the two egotistical personalities, which for months had existed at a level of simmering hostility, now collapsed completely, with the inevitable result that Waring abruptly withdrew from the partnership. For Harry Selfridge it was a catastrophe. He was left with a deep hole in the road into which
he had already sunk over a million dollars and he simply didn’t have the money to continue alone. As building came to a halt, Selfridge was left looking bleakly at what the press described as ‘the largest building site London has ever seen’. Disputes between the ex-partners led to litigation that was subsequently settled out of court. Selfridge said little in public, only remarking to a journalist that ‘We had crossed the Rubicon, and my money largely paid for the ferry.’

London’s established retailers must have been delighted at Selfridge’s embarrassment, but Selfridge himself remained composed, never doubting for a moment that he would find a way through. He carried on compiling data on London and its inhabitants – how they travelled, where they lived, what they read, where they shopped. Huge ledgers in the Selfridges archives show how methodically he undertook this research. Every newspaper and magazine is listed with its price, readership and ownership. Reports were compiled on the stock and sales techniques of rival retailers. He gathered information obsessively, so much so that by the time Selfridge’s opened to the public, there wasn’t much he didn’t know about the demographics of his customer base. He called it ‘scientific’ planning. Today we would call it the cutting-edge of market research.

Looking back at the brief years of the Edwardian era, it is all too easy to think life was just a round of country house parties, endless servants and extravagant living. To a certain extent it was all of these things. But while the rich led a seemingly charmed life, a great swathe of the populace lived in poverty and the middle class had not yet fully succumbed to the temptations of shopping for anything other than what they needed. Much of this was changing fast – and Selfridge knew it. A new group of men were finding their way into the inner circles of power – men like the grocery tycoon Sir Thomas Lipton, the trade magnate Arthur Sassoon and the financier Sir Ernest Cassel. There was already talk about the newly elected Liberal Government’s plans to ‘tax the rich’, and intense political discussion about helping the poor. Most significantly, elements of the middle class were beginning to break established boundaries. Shopping for
them wasn’t just about formal clothes, mourning clothes, maid’s uniforms and other household necessities. They wanted luggage to take on their travels, fashionable clothes to pack, photographic equipment to record their activities, sporting equipment and all the things associated with a more mobile life. This was the target audience Selfridge had envisioned for his altogether more egalitarian store. It was also a group many of London’s existing retailers had not yet identified.

No one who met Selfridge at the time would ever have known he was a whisker away from financial disaster. He always put on a show, never more so than when money was tight. The end of 1907 was a difficult time in which to raise money. Wall Street was in disarray due to the collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust Company. In Britain high unemployment and unease on the London Stock Exchange sent share prices tumbling and pushed up the bank rate to 7 per cent. There was also a widely held view that London already had enough shops. Harrods, D. H. Evans, Whiteley’s, John Barker, Debenham & Freebody’s, Swan & Edgar
et al.
already catered for London’s shopping needs. Could there possibly be room for yet another store?

Buoyed by his almost divine belief in financial salvation, Selfridge believed there was. Relief came just three months later in the shape of the genial tea tycoon John Musker who, along with his partner Julius Drew, had made a fortune through the Home & Colonial grocery chain which had originated in Liverpool. Musker had happily acquired the trappings of wealth, indulging in the expensive hobby of owning and breeding racehorses and acquiring a beautiful house called Shadwell Park in Thetford, Norfolk, where he maintained a fine stud. Musker was happy to invest in what Selfridge eagerly described as ‘London’s first custom-built department store’. In March 1908, Selfridge & Co. Ltd was formed, with capital of £900,000, made up of 400,000 preference shares and 500,000 ordinary shares at £1 each. Curiously the arrangement was finalized by a deed executed in France over a sixpenny stamp, a move reported by the
Financial News
rather cynically as ‘saving Mr Selfridge the sum of £2,000 in stamp
duties’. Selfridge, a firm believer in the adage ‘all publicity is good publicity’, ignored the sarcasm.

Builders were back on site within the month. Interestingly, Selfridge continued with Waring & White, for the benefits of the talented Mr White far outweighed any lasting resentment towards Waring. He also employed the Swedish engineering firm of Kreuger & Toll, along with their innovative structural engineer Sven Bylander – although communicating with the genius ‘man of steel’ was tricky as he spoke barely a word of English. Ivar Kreuger happily translated for Selfridge, who delighted in keeping the press up to date about progress on what was described as ‘the first fully steel-framed retail building in England’. Since working with steel was much quicker than with iron, he also anticipated ‘an exceptionally fast ten-month building programme’. Architects today owe a great debt to Harry Selfridge and his team of construction experts. Largely thanks to their endeavours, the antiquated 1894 London Building Act was rewritten to sanction steel-framed construction, and from that point onwards steel became the pre-eminent structural material.

While sightseers thronged Oxford Street to watch the giant crane lifting 125 tons of steel a week, Harry Selfridge set about recruiting his senior management team. He meticulously planned an ‘organizational chart’ – essentially the entire structure of the business at a glance – showing who was responsible for what, from the shop floor right through to the staff rest-rooms. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was left to chance. There was to be a staff doctor, a visiting staff dentist and a ‘supervisor of staff athletics’. Transport departments were set up with ‘motor drivers’ as well as horse-drawn vans. Glove cleaning (just one of the many services to be offered by the store) would be out-sourced. All this and more was recorded on the massive document pinned to the wall in Harry’s temporary office.

Three key posts were filled by Americans: C. W. Steines became controller of merchandise, William Oppenheimer directed the store’s interior layout and fixtures, and Edward Goldsman took charge of the window displays. Before Selfridge, window-dressing in London
had been haphazard. Some of the bigger stores had a nominal display manager, but visual presentations were rarely planned to a theme and never colour co-ordinated. In most cases, it was merely a case of showing the diversity of stock, which often involved putting one of everything in the window. The result, as Andrew Carnegie had said, was ‘just jumble’.

Exactly as he had done at Marshall Field, Selfridge broke the established practice of folding merchandise away behind glass cabinet doors. Goods were to be freely on show throughout the internal floor space. The store’s windows would tell their own story. There were twenty-one of them, twelve of which contained the largest sheets of plate glass in the world, and as far as Selfridge was concerned, each was a blank canvas waiting to be painted to perfection. Edward Goldsman was allocated enough studio space to house props and given sufficient staff to cope with what was listed on the organizational chart as ‘flags & scenic work; interior & side aisle displays; main windows; flowers & palms’. The resulting displays – some of which wouldn’t look out of date today – were visual masterpieces that defined the concept of creative window-dressing ever after.