Shopping, Seduction and Mr Selfridge

In 1909 London's first dedicated department store opened in a glorious burst of publicity, surrounded by the largest advertising campaign ever mounted in the British press. Zola called Selfridges a 'great cathedral of shopping', and its high priest was Harry Gordon Selfridge, father of modern retailing, philanderer, gambler, dandy and the greatest showman the consumer world has ever known. The charismatic Selfridge had created nothing less than a lavish 'theatre of retail'. His talents were for shopping and seduction: and as his shop grew in success, so did his list of mansions, yachts, racehorses - and conquests. From humble beginnings, learning his trade in turn-of-the-century Chicago, the young Mr Selfridge came to London, where he lived through the turmoil of the First World War and the glittering excesses of the 1920s when he lost millions at French gaming tables before being ousted from his store in 1939. To this irrepressible man, 'the store was a theatre with the curtain going up at 9 o'clock': Mr Selfridge reveals the captivating story of what happened before the curtain fell....