This London department store
holds some incredible secrets...
..and the unique story of a man
who rose from rags to riches...
to take th
across the Atlantic.
Harry Gordon Selfridge was the maverick that shook up British society.
He knew what the customer wanted
and gave it to them in style -
transforming ordinary shopping into an extraordinary adventure.
He was a genius from nine to five, a fool at the weekend.
This is the true story of Selfridges department store
and th
who built it.
This program is made possible by contributions to your PBS On London's world-famous Oxford Street...
..one building stands imperious above the rest.
This is Selfridges.
Founded in 1909,
over a century it has become an icon of the capital.
I can't imagine Oxford Street without Selfridges.
Se
a neo-classical gem.
Twice voted 'Best Department Store in the World'...
..it holds 13 acres of retail space,
spread over six floors.
A huge food hall, nine restaurants
and three storeys of women's fashion.
Selfridges has an entire department
dedicated solely to tailor-made denim.
It boasts Europe's largest designer shoe gallery.
And the aptly-named Wonder Room,
stocks only the most luxurious brands.
The modern store is a commercial success story.
In 2
of $200 million.
But Selfridges' significance
goes far beyond commercial success.
It has an astonishing hidden history.
The store helped change British society -
liberati
shattering class divisions
and reinve
Selfridges is the department store
that shook up old Britain.
And at its heart is an enigma -
founder and inspiration, Harry Gordon Selfridge.
The American outsider who came to be known as 'The Earl of Oxford Street'.
This man gave Britain energy
and he gave us excitement for shopping.
And he brought this American 'can do' approach.
Until recently this ret
and irrepressible personality
had been almost forgotten.
Now, through private documents, family archives
and expert interviews
Selfridge's story has been pieced together once again.
His biographer, Lindy Woodhead,
has been at the forefront of his rediscovery.
Harry Selfridge himself is little known in America.
And I was talking to an historian
at the Chicago Institute about this,
and I asked her why there was so little written about Harry in America.
And she said, 'Oh, well, my dear, probably because And she said, 'Is there much
written about him in London?'
And I said 'No'.
And she said, 'Well, why is that?'
I said probably because he was an American.
So now we can fuse the two together
and Harry's come home.
It seems Selfridge's destiny was shaped by his childhood.
A totally self-made man -
he was molded and motivated by severe hardship.
Adversity within the family will always mold a child.
Sometimes they won't be able to cope with it,
and other times it makes them much stronger.
Harry
was born in 1856
into a poor family in rural Wisconsin.
Harry Selfridge was an only child.
So he grew up with his mother
who had been deserted by her husband.
Robert Selfridge had left to fight for the Union forces in the Civil War.
He survived - but ch
to return to his family.
As a result Harry became extremely close to his mother.
What he knew as a child
was that he was going to have to help support his mother.
It made him very protective,
and it made him protective of women.
Selfridge grew up am
improve his circumstances
and escape from poverty.
Soon, the bright lights of Chicago were calling.
In 1879 Selfridge landed a job
newest department store,
Marshall Field's.
(Trolley bell rings)
Chicago was the frontier town of late 19th-century America.
People were really free with their money
and they were spending money to show that they'd made it.
And Marshall Field's was the shop
that was catering to those wild tastes.
It was at Marshall Field's that Harry Selfridge nurtured his talent for retail.
He started off as a stock room boy, apparently,
at Marshall Field's
and he worked his way up.
And that's where he started to inno
promotion, architecture.
Selfridge blazed a trail through the ranks.
Marshall Field's became the most popular store in Chicago,
thanks in no small part to Harry's bright ideas.
He introduced this kind of catchphrase which said:
'Only so many days until Christmas.'
That's still used today.
You know, that kind of,
'You've only got so many days to buy your Christmas presents.'
That was him.
Within eight years Selfridge was the store's General Manager
and a well-known face.
But by 1
at Marshall Field's for more than 20 years.
His career progression i
Chicago had run its course.
He was feeling frustrated about his inability
to sort of rule things and to run things
and to innovate without any restriction.
Selfridge was essentially ambitious, impulsive,
a showman.
Selfridge dreamed of opening a grand store of his own.
Work trips had previously taken him to London
and the glamour of the Old World had turned his head.
London really was the center of the world.
It was at the heart still of an empire that spanned the globe.
It was enormously important for manufacturing,
for industry, for finance, for fashion.
You know, practically every sphere London dominated.
But there was one commercial sphere where London
behind: department stores.
Th
Harry Selfridge ideas.
He was looking at the retail market
and there were some amazing new shops
being built in Paris, which were described as Cathedrals of Shopping.
And those didn't exist yet in London.
Selfridge was able to provide something that London was actively missing.
Selfridge was decided.
He would realize his vision for a department store in London.
Today, the site Selfridge chose for his store makes perfect sense.
Oxford Street is one of the busiest shopping streets in the world.
But it wasn't always like this.
In 1905 the street was an undesirable back-water.
So when Harry Selfridge chose to build here,
he was taking a major risk.
He was going way over to the west end of Oxford Street
and an area which lacked very large stores.
So this
a daring thing to do.
To its advantage, the site was directly opposite
the newly-opened Underground train station, Bond Street.
One of the great developments of the early 20th century, late 19th century
was the rise of public transport.
It meant that people could come from further out of London into work in London.
And it meant that women could travel more easily and more independently.
And Selfridge was very, very conscious of that.
Archives reveal Harry Selfridge tried to have
the station renamed as 'Selfridges'
and build a tunnel to it from his store.
And his plans for the store's architecture were no less ambitious.
He commissioned a series of elaborate designs.
These submitted drafts were recently unearthed
at the Royal Institute of British Architects.
His initial drawings looked more like the White House
or St Paul's Cathedral,
and had a huge dome in the middle.
Unfortunately for Selfridge,
the authorities in London didn't appreciate his grand designs.
When the elevations were present
to the planning office,
at Marylebone council,
they said, 'We're sorry, Mr. Selfridge,
I'm afraid you can't have six storeys and a mansard roof.'
'Why not?'
'Because you'll be
taller than St Paul's.
So they had to be ripped up and they had to be redone.
For one of the o
in his life, Selfridge scaled back his plans -
and they were finally approved.
As Selfridge waited for the construction to be completed
he set about promoting his store,
using the all-American innovation of advertising.
Nothing like Selfridges' bold, illustrated ads
had ever been seen in Britain before.
These are all part of Selfridge's fantastic campaign to launch the store.
So they were out in the newspapers, in the press.
This poster from th
'Shopping at Selfridges:
A pleasure, a pastime and a recreation.'
It has a picture of a wo
quite a seductive couple.
It hints at all sorts of possible encounters
in the shopping world.
And there's somebody actually at the back and I've never noticed her before.
And she's, I think, taken off her pince-nez,
to have a good look at this couple having tea here.
And maybe Selfridge was trying to make a kind of gentle, coded invitation
to people meeting indiscreetly.
Before the store was even finished,
Selfridge spent the equivalent of $2 million on advertising.
It was an unprecedented media blitz.
And the message to London was clear:
Se
a whole new experience.
Modern shopping is based entirely around the concept of 'unlimited browsing'.
Customers are free to look around the store as they please.
But in London th
In
was rare and difficult.
The
in London at the beginning of the 20th century
was that you couldn't look until you found something that you wanted,
you had to go in knowing what you wanted.
Hidden away in the upmarket district of Mayfair
some traditional London stores still remain.
The Piccadilly Arcade has been here since 1909.
The same year that Selfridges was founded.
Its shops' style of service remains almost untouched.
Good afternoon.
I'm Mr. Rowley from Budd.
We're an old-fashioned haberdasher.
We've been here since 1910.
And we sell shirts, pajamas, nightwear.
But we specialize in socks.
The socks ar
behind a counter.
You don't
through them yourself, you are served instead.
Ge
about their socks
and it's very important they're served properly.
If a custo
and requires socks,
there's many questions we need to ask
to ascertain what it is that he wants.
We ask him what particular length he would require -
as in short, medium or long - and what material the sock's made of.
So we do many different fabrics and many different colors
and many different sizes.
It's quite important for a gentleman to come into us,
not to affect any sensitivities of the ladies
by showing some leg.
So what we like to do is to advise him to have
the longer sock which goes right to the knee.
So it's a little bit of an odd sort of conundrum
about what size you are.
And we find the gentleman needs to be served
and to be led through the maze of sock sizes
because it's quite difficult to get the correct one.
In 1900s London, not only could you not look at goods yourself,
there was heavy pressure to buy.
'Just lookin
was simply not acceptable.
You didn't want a person who you were paying wages to
being tied up for long periods,
so the policy was developed
to weed out people who weren't going to buy.
Inside department stores,
the ominously named 'floor walker' stalked the aisles.
The floor walker was there to deal with potential time wasters.
And in 1900s London that included anyone browsing.
As Selfridge himself was to find out.
When he'd first come to London
he'd gone into a store and the floor walker had said,
'Is sir going to buy anything?'
And Harry Selfridge said, 'No, no, I'm just looking.'
So he said, 'Well, 'op it then, mate.'
He was just, you know, a thug dressed in a morning suit.
The ordeal left Selfri
determined to offer Londoners the freedom to shop.
At
no floor walkers
and no pressure to buy.
Yo
at your leisure.
Here, for example, it's saying,
this is an invitation to the whole British public
and to visitors from overseas.
No cards of admission are required.
And are all welcome.
That the pleasures of shopping as well as those of sightseeing
begin from the opening hour.
In March 1909 opening day arrived.
Selfridges doors opened to surging crowds.
During the launch week
one-and-a-quarter-million people visited the store.
So that was absolutely huge.
From a city of four million people,
one in four Londoners came to have a look.
They were astonished by what they saw.
It was just huge.
It dwarfed everything else on Oxford Street at the time.
From a scale point of view
it's almost incomparable with anything else
other than an institutional building.
It's architecturally magnificent.
It's so solid.
Once inside the impact was even greater.
To this day, the Selfridges shopping environment
remains one of the store's calling cards.
When it first opened it was a revelation.
There were open vistas, fresh flowers, musicians playing,
and scent in the air.
And at last, goods were
see and touch,
stacked high in every color.
Selfridge called his store an '
He took goods out from
glass cabinet doors
and arranged them in displays so people could touch them.
He wanted everything to be tactile
and he felt that it should be an experience
that you would participate in.
There were hair salons, art galleries, restaurants
and a concierge to book you train or theater tickets.
Selfridges must have been a complete shock
to the average British customer.
It was almost a social center.
In fact Selfridge saw it as social center
as much as a shop.
He knew how to capture people's attention
in a very delightful way.
It was about delighting his audience.
It was an audience.
It wasn't just about sales.
It was about the theater, the spectacle.
For London - shopping as a pastime was born.
And for its women, in particular, it meant freedom.
In Edwardian Britain it was generally considered improper
for a lady to go out without an escort.
But department stores provided a new, respectable destination.
Upper-class women in the
would have to be chaperoned wherever they went.
However the big department stores at this time
really started to change that.
They became a space women could go to and feel safe
being out in public on their own or with another female friend, potentially.
Shopping for the first time becomes a real kind of leisu
Selfridge's offering was partic
for women,
in a very practical sense.
The matron of a respectable household starts to feel
that actually maybe it's okay to go out.
As long as there's somewhere I can go,
where if I need to go to the toilet I can
or, you know, you couldn't do that previously.
Amazingly, Selfr
was the first store to provide women's toilets.
Up until this point if you needed to go...
you had to go home.
You can't just, like, nip off to the toilet.
It kind of becomes a real ordeal
and Selfridges was one of the first public spaces
that had ladies' restrooms that women could use.
So it really was about creating an atmosphere
that women felt comfortable in.
At last, a lady could happily spend the day shopping,
which was definitely to Selfridges' advantage.
Because a well-dressed Edwardian lady
needed a vast range of clothes and accessories.
The avenues for department stores making money are really numerous.
Getting dressed in the Edwardian period was a very costly business indeed.
Women were changing their outfits sort of up to three times a day.
Now, we've got one petticoat here on our mannequin.
But depending on the particular style that was in fashion,
women could have worn up to seven or eight different layers of petticoats.
At this time, no clothes were pre-made.
A lady would chose fabrics and the store would make the dress to order.
You've got all of this l
these amazing lace trimmings, which again you can see,
it really is conspicuous consumption.
All of this lace would have been made by hand.
So you can imagine the expense.
So you've also got a whole host of accessories
that go with these outfits.
Millinery especially was really, really big business.
They would choose feathers, you
know, these artificial flowers.
They'd have sometimes whole stuffed birds, fake fruit.
It really became kind of, an enormous, almost sculptural
kind of walking art.
So, as well as the millinery,
you've also got the parasol as well.
They've got so many different areas,
so many different things they can sell to women,
from textiles, through to actually having the dresses made up themselves.
That's a huge, huge array.
But there was a problem.
The store had lots to sell, but too few customers.
Th
and it was quiet.
the crowds back.
Today publicity stunts are commonplace.
At Selfridges, lau
are central to the store's marketing.
Bu
they were seen as tasteless.
Harry Gordon Selfridge changed all that.
Selfridge was one of the first people who m
stunts respectable.
He had an approach to marketing, to first of all draw the people in.
In Jul
in his lap.
All England was talking of just one thing:
Frenchman Louis Bleriot had just completed the first flight
over the English Channel.
An
on the coast in Kent,
you know, ready to transport the aeroplane back.
Selfridge placed the history-making plane in the middle of the shop floor.
The effect was immediate.
It became like a museum or a sightseeing attraction.
It was a wonderful... it was an outing.
This time the crowds were here to stay and business took off.
Selfridges was modern, fashionable and popular.
That period, just before the Fi
of enormous change and excitement in London.
These kind of beacons of modernity are arriving on the streets of London.
And one of those beacons of modernity was Selfridge's shop.
The store's modernist philosophy extended to its politics.
By 1910 the British suffragettes' campaign
for women's right to vote
was at its height.
Selfridge made his store's position clear.
Selfridge was a keen supporter of the suffragette movement.
He advertised in their newspapers.
He flew the flag above the shop.
He wrote articles defending their cause.
He also saw them as potential customers.
So he stocked goods in their colors - the colors of the suffrage movement
which were green for hope, purple for dignity,
and white for purity.
Selfridge's support for the suffragettes
made him popular with women shoppers.
And wh
turned violent
his stance protected his store.
In 1912 the suffragettes stepped up their campaign of militancy,
and they started burning public buildings,
they started spitting at policemen in the street
and they started smashing shop windows.
Selfridge benefited from his support for them.
They didn't smash his window
Selfridge'
distinctly American ideals were paying dividends.
Obviously, in part, his support for women
was a calculated attempt to get customers in.
But he was an imaginative guy
who wanted to promote something that was different from everywhere else.
And, of course, in the end, it benefited the store to some extent.
Next, Selfridge challenged Britain's greatest divide of all - the class syste
In the early 1900s society was still clearly divided.
Even when shopping, the classes did not mix.
Selfridges was the first store in Britain
where every class shopped together.
Before Selfridge high-class people
shopped at high-class stores,
the upper middle class at upper-middle-class stores,
skilled workers different stores.
What Selfridge did was he said to the British people,
'We are open to the whole British public,
and everybody is welcome.'
The idea of appealing to all
classes was openly sniffed at by his competitors.
But anyone wit
to spend was welcome at Selfridges.
Selfridge was a totally self-made man,
so I think he appreciated the idea
that everyone had the potential to be
a wonderful profit-making customer for him.
Middle-class professions and their wives and children
had money for the first time and...
They wanted to be accepted and taken seriously.
One of
to attract customers of every class,
was to introduce discounted products.
In 1910 Selfridges opened the 'Bargain Basement' -
a well-presented but price-led department.
It caused a sensation.
After a few years it was worth a quarter of all the sales within the store.
So, you know, that was... a pretty good idea.
Harry Selfridge also established the first, fixed, bi-annual sale.
It's now a worldwide retail tradition.
In 1910, the sales cemented Selfridges' position as a store that was open to all.
It was a very American way of viewing the world, you know.
The girl who comes in in a dirty dress, you know,
who is working as a shop assistant,
could be a movie star tomorrow.
Selfridge's egalitarian approach extended to his staff.
He treated them in a total
from his competitors.
Selfridge brought customer service to London
and transformed working in retail.
In Edwardian times, poor working conditions blighted British department stores.
Many h
still had domestic servants
and shop staff were treated in much the same way.
They worked 12-hour da
they didn't have any rights whatsoever.
They worked six days a week.
They had no holidays to speak of.
So it was pretty hard.
And li
lived in dormitories on site.
Just outside London is this small, old-fashioned department store
called Jacksons.
Founded in 1875, you can still see today
where the staff used to live above the store.
Now, sadly, all we've got here today is the carcass of what used to be there.
You've got to imagine this was very primitive accommodation.
You had one wash basin, you had simple beds.
It wasn't like a hotel or your own house.
It was very much you live here, you work here.
So it was the basics of eve
So there might have been at least 60 members of staff up here,
all sharing a little partition between themselves.
But all sharing the same wash basin,
so you can imagine at night there would have been a queue to wash themselves.
Living at the department store meant living by their rules.
Ther
in the evening,
and on the shop floor, staff were docked pay
if they broke a list of management regulations.
Here at Jacksons we had some quite fair but strict fines.
All assistants are to have breakfasted before they start Fine for breach - sixpence.
All staff must at all times not gossip o
in groups
or you will be fined threepence.
And my favorite: all
provide themselves
with tape measure, scissors and a pencil.
Without these he is useless.
Harry Selfridge established a new code of employment practice in Britain.
He did away with fines
and none of his staff lived on site.
Instead, they received better pay.
In return he demanded a new culture of customer service.
His big, big thing was, 'Don't push the sale, just give them customer service.'
Customer service was key and I think that's a very American thing still today,
that, you know, if you treat the customer right then they're gonna wanna buy.
Selfridge ran a tight ship.
He'd send the staff notes for improvements every morning.
And if he found any dust,
he'd pointedly write his initials in it with his finger.
Because he was very sparing with his praise -
he wasn't a gushing, effusive man at all -
when he did say, 'Well done,' it actually meant something.
Selfridge kept his distance,
and certainly never flirted or fraternized with staff.
He
bringing sex into the workplace.
But unbeknownst to him, in later years,
did develop.
And it inv
someone close to him.
His son, Harry Selfridge Junior,
Jennifer Selfridge is Harry Junior's daughter.
He fell in love...wi
pretty girl in her 20s,
who was working at Selfridges.
And worked for a while in the toy departm
And they formed a relationship
Gordon Senior would not approve of.
In a strange contradiction to the egalitarian philosophy of his store,
Selfridge senior was incredibly snobbish
when it came to his own family.
He wanted his children to marry into the upper classes.
British society was very heavily-layered at that time,
as we all know.
Doubtless, he was expected to marry a woman...
an upper class
English woman.
And Gordon Senior disapproved.
Selfridge Junior was so worried,
he kept his relationship under wraps -
hiding his pregnant girlfriend away,
while he lived in a London apartment.
At the store, Harry Gordon Selfridge's attitude
remained modern and progressive.
And in 1911, he took his greatest risk.
Having make-up and perfume near the front of the store
is an innovation that is now widespread.
But that was really introduced by Selfridge.
Harry Gordon Selfridge invented the ground floor
beauty and cosmetics department.
It is now the template for every department store.
Thanks to Harry Selfridge,
you walk into a department store
pretty much anywhere around the world
and you walk straight into Fragrance and Cosmetics.
But it was certainly not always the case.
In the Edwardi
make-up was available and judiciously worn -
but it was not respectable.
At a department store, it was generally hidden away
on an upper floor.
But Selfridge spotted an emerging opportunity.
He l
near the front of the store.
He wanted to make a little bit of make-up
more respectable than it was.
Selfridge's brainstorm was to bring perfume and make-up
together right by the main entrance.
So the first thing that happens is your senses
are assaulted with wonderful smells, wonderful scent.
But the add on of colored make up...
it became not ju
it bec
for young women
to wear colored cosmetics.
So
everything together.
It was enormously popular.
continues in Selfridges today
lucrative departments.
Michael Sheridan owns an international retail design agency.
He believes Harry Selfridge' placement of cosmetics
is fundamental to department stores.
For me, it's very much the kind of candy
that draws people into big retail spaces.
It creates an enormous amount of theater
for people visiting department stores.
And
that he recognized
that it should be one of the first things that you find
when you go into a store that's supposed to offer you everything.
Harry Selfridge's original ideas
have inspired modern retail psychology.
Today, stores use a variety of hidden techniques
to encourage the customer to buy.
According to Michael, at Selfridges,
they're trying to seed the denim department in customers' minds.
There's that wonderful display of hanging out the washing,
with continuous pairs of jeans -
sort of almost the laundry line with denim.
But also, probably not so noticeable,
are the planters at the bottoms and tops of the escalators.
The floral displays in them are actually m
So whether you're a very observant shopper
or you're a very unobservant shopper,
you're going to leave with the impression
that there's something going on to do with denim.
So, if in a week or so's time, you're thinking,
'Actually I do want a pair of jeans,'
chances are you'll be going back to Selfridges.
Back in 1914, Harry Selfridge's new ideas meant the store was booming.
But it was about need his retail genius more than ever.
In 1914, World War One began.
On the face of it, war and shopping shouldn't mix.
But in wartime London, life went on.
There's a sense that it's part of your patriotic duty
to carry on as usual and to continue going shopping.
That was a part of the way you were going to resist the enemy.
In fact, some London department stores
turned the war to their advantage.
Harrods had struck a deal to make British Army uniforms.
Selfridge made do
contract for the French Army's underwear.
And, in store,
a cynical stunt helped the well-stocked pharmacy push its wares.
They had a demonstration where the store pharmacist
made mustard gas on the roof in 1915.
It must have b
because the smell
and the actual reality of it hitting home.
So mothers
the chemist and buy gauze
to send out to their boys which was much needed.
As the last year of the war approached,
the store posted record annual profits.
By 1919, and the end of the war,
Selfridge had made so much money,
he could afford a lavish extension.
the size of the store,
creating the two-block site we see today.
It was ready for the explosion of the 1920s.
Selfridges today markets itself
as young and fashionable.
It dedicates more space than any
to youth culture and trendy clothing.
That identity began in the 1920s.
The 1920s is the era of youth,
it's a time when young people stopped deferring to their elders.
After the catastrophe they weren't going to be dictated to
by a bunch of crusty old men who'd caused so much trouble.
And so you get this sense of youth and vigor.
Harry Selfridge and his store were quick to embrace the new scene.
Not only did they stock dresses in the fashionable shorter length,
for the first time, they were pre-made
and ready to wear off the racks.
This dress is a ki
typical style
for something that might have been worn in the mid-1920s.
Now, this is a huge departure from the styles
that were being worn just a decade earlier.
At their highest, dress hems came to just below the knee.
Now this is really the first time in women's fashion
that dresses were this short.
So you can imagine the kind of shock that it caused
when women were out in public wearing styles like this.
As n
swept over from America,
Selfridge's lightweight dresses Women were dancing the black bottom, the Charleston,
you get all of these new dances being developed.
So sort of the dancing, the movement, is all reflected.
All of those changes are reflected in the style of dress you see here.
In London, there was a new breed of nightclubs
and risque entertainment.
Selfridge himself had always had
gambling and occasionally, women.
When his beloved wife Rosalie died suddenly in 1918,
the 62-year-old became a familiar face When someone like Harry Selfridge comes along
and he starts going to these nightclubs
and mixing with these younger people,
even though he's an anomaly because he's so old,
he's accepted because he's got money to spend
and he loves being part of it, so why not?
Selfridge was the first retailer to become a celebrity himself.
And he harnessed that celebrity to his advantage,
parading his showbiz friends through the store.
So this birth of the cult of celebrity, if you want,
that didn't really exist in
having Douglas Fairbanks come in, Charlie Chaplin come in.
These were huge, major international stars.
They came in and once they'd done whatever they
they'd go up to his office and sign his window -
he had a corner window - with a diamond tipped pen
and sign their autograph on the window.
By now, the store itself was famous around the world.
In particular, it was known for its extraordinary windows.
The store has 21 plate-glass windows
running along Oxford Street.
The stylistic displays are
central to the store's identity.
They invest huge resources into window dressing.
Every few months, in the early hours
and out of sight of the public,
a specialist team changes the entire strip in unison.
In the 1920s, the Selfridges windows were the largest
in the world and the designs were revolutionary.
Selfridge didn't just fill them with goods like other stores.
He filled them with stories - He made them very attractive,
so that people imagined themselves in the store.
For the first time in London,
a store was not just selling products but a lifestyle.
And they took the unprecedented step
of lighting their displays after dark.
Selfridges was one of the first public places
to use mass electricity.
The store went on to debut
many of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.
It staged the first ever demonstration of television
and broadcast early radio.
Harry Selfridge ensured that the store was always as futuristic as possible.
Inside the store, there were other innovations.
There were nine elevators, this had not happened before
in British department stores.
At the Museum of London,
they've kept the ornate elevators from the 1920s.
This
technology.
That was something that Selfridges offered
many of its visitors.
So for the first time,
many people would have gone into a lift in Selfridges.
It was a new experience for them.
The first thing that they did was look up at the ceiling,
because they couldn't quite believe they were going up.
Another novelty that Gordon Selfridge introduced
were female lift operators.
They
beautiful white uniforms
with knickerbockers and beautiful white jackets.
And they would manually operate the lifts
for anyone who came into them.
This was quite unusual, to have women working in a lift.
Because it meant that very often,
women were in very close proximity to men,
in the same small space, and this was very unique.
This was something that wasn't really seen
as an acceptable practice previously.
The elevator operators reflect Selfridge's liberal, racier style.
At times, it put him at odds
with Britain's conservative elite
who disapproved of his risque approach to retail.
There was a lot of sn
what was considered
the sort of vulgarity of Americans
and Selfridge really did fall into that,
he was a bit excessive by English standards.
And he did feel excluded.
Selfridge was desperate to break into the British upper classes.
Bu
was to cost his store dear.
Selfridge spared no expense
trying to make it as a British gentleman.
He used the store's healthy profits
to pay for astronomical personal expenses.
Money in America was usually enough
to give you kind of class status.
It wasn't as easy in Britain.
And he spent his money like water.
And
extravagant.
Selfridge rented Lord Lansdowne's grand house in London
and Highcliffe Castle on the coast.
And this never-before seen footage
shows him entertaining aboard his fully-crewed luxury steam yacht.
(Ship's horn)
Whilst p
the store could afford to support his expenditure.
But behind the scenes, a perfect storm was brewing.
It began with the Dolly Sisters.
They were identical twins.
They were extraordinary creatures.
They were petite when they grew up...
..beautiful... dark...exotic-looking.
By the late 1920s, the sisters were the most famous
cabaret and film stars in the world.
Their racy notoriety inspired the term 'Dolly Birds'.
And Harry Gordon Selfridge was absolutely besotted.
There would have been quite a large number
of very influential and famous men
that would have been throwing themselves at the Dolly Sisters at that time.
Selfridge was very persistent.
He wanted to spend time with them.
He thought they were great.
Selfridge had floated the store on the
in 1926 and made a fortune.
He had access to a great deal of money...
and the Dollies we
He was very generous,
gave them lots of different things.
And through him, they got into gambling.
One of the reasons why
Selfridge and Jenny Dolly
liked each other's company so much was gambling.
Selfridge and the Dollies were regular faces at the card tables.
But behind the smiles,
Harry and Jenny were sliding towards a gambling addiction.
Selfridge bankrolled huge losses at the tables of French casinos
and then charged it to the store.
He wou
he would fund all the money.
And if she lost...he lost.
And if she won, she kept the money.
This is particularly interesting,
it's Harry Selfridge's account book.
And columns of figures of
money that he's spent
on
I mean, he even records magazines and newspapers.
And then much larger sums.
Seriously large.
He
for £1,200.
And these su
the larger sums,
have no entry by the side of them.
It is safe, I think,
they are gaming debts.
£1,200 is $65,000 in today's money.
It's been estimated
she cost him about...
in the region of £200 million in contemporary money.
The extravagance couldn't last.
By the 1930s, the effects of the Great Depression
were being felt in London.
Selfridges, in particular, was beginning to struggle.
The other department stores had copied Harry's ideas
and the competitive advantage had been lost.
What's more, Selfridge had made a fatal business error
and over expanded.
By 1939, the store was in debt and hemorrhaging cash.
But Harry continued to fund his lifestyle and gambling
from the store coffers.
As a publicly limited company,
the board of Selfridges could call an extraordinary general meeting.
80-year-old Harry Gordon Selfridge was told to attend.
by the late 1930s.
And
had cost the company considerable money.
He had debts to
Revenue, which were huge.
The Board of Selfridges told him
he had to pay his debts or go.
Selfridge was demoted to honorary Chairman
and given a meager pension.
You can't go on forever but at that point,
in a move that w
ungracious and very badly handled,
they guaranteed to give him a pension
and stripped him of his job.
Eight months later, after he kept coming into the store,
the staff were embarrassed,
his secretary had no letters to send to anybody,
he would dictate them but there was no work for him to do.
By the end,
Selfridge almost became an embarrassment to the store.
Once they'd taken any managerial authority away from him,
they were quite quick to t
what he'd been left.
In 1940, the title of chairman was also withdrawn.
Selfridge was told he was no longer welcome at his beloved store.
But he couldn't let go.
He'd travel to Oxford Street every day,
simply to stand in the street
and stare up at the store he'd built.
People saw him, still in his rather smart clothes,
then no longer very appropriate.
Shabby, but kind of, you know,
morning suit and top hat, looking at Selfridges,
but really outside it, and neglected.
He used to count pennies at the bus stop by the Green Man pub,
to get on the bus from Putney and come to Oxford Street.
And in 1943, standing opposite,
looking incredibly threadbare,
he was arrested for being a vagrant.
Harry Gordon Selfridge died in 1947.
Despite all his success, he passed away penniless.
Finally he died and I think it was a very basic kind of funeral.
So it was a sad
he didn't pass on his wealth.
I don't think his chil
particularly wealthy,
because there was no wealth to pass on.
Although Selfridge left no inheritance,
his granddaughter Jennifer holds no ill-feeling.
Well, I...
I feel I have no problem with that at all.
I thin
earned all that money,
an
to spend all of it.
But there is a final extraordinary twist to the tale.
Jennifer, her siblings and her mother
were always kept hidden from Harry Gordon Selfridge.
This private home movie shows Jennifer's parents
happily together -
as they were for the rest of their lives.
Yet, incredibly, Harry Junior never felt able
to reveal his wife and family to his father.
Jennifer Selfridge never met her grandfather, Harry Gordon Selfridge.
The relationship and we, as four children,
were kept quiet, secret in a way.
Isn't that awful
Isn't that ridiculous?
It is absurd.
But it all worked out.
And I'm happy to be descended from him.
You know, he made
great, and it's still there.
You know, it's still there.
Selfridge's legacy is strong.
The store has survived 70 years since he passed.
In the Second World War, its deep basements were used
to stage secure communications between Churchill and Roosevelt.
And from the '50s to '90s, it continued to trade -
an industry leader,
changing ownership several times.
In 2003, it was finally taken back into private hands.
The Westons, a Canadian billionaire retail family,
have rejuvenated the store,
reinventing the Harry Gordon Selfridge formula of interior design and high fashion.
Under the Westons,
Selfridges is now posting record profits once again.
Thanks to Harry Gordon Selfridge,
the store still has pride of place on Oxford Street.
It stands today as testament to one American's lasting impact on Britain.
The Secret of Selfridges is out.
Harr
alive in the heart of London.
It has withstood two world wars, and there it is today,
full
flags flying.
And that perso
I believe,
is imbued in the building,
through the force of the personality
of the man who built it.
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