A Look at Selfridges Through the Ages – WWD

LONDON — Selfridges is changing hands once again after nearly 20 years of ownership by the forward-thinking, sustainably minded Weston family.

Here, WWD takes a look at some key moments in the British retailer’s 113-year history, as well as its colorful owners and managers, starting with the founder Harry Gordon Selfridge.

1906: The son of a small-town storekeeper, Harry Gordon Selfridge works his way through the ranks of the Chicago retailer Marshall Field & Co. There, he innovates by lighting the store at night and opening a restaurant where ladies could lunch, unchaperoned. Selfridge is also credited with coining the phrase, “The customer is always right.”

He later marries an American property heiress names Rosalie Buckingham, and comes into a lot of money. In 1906 he travels to London with his wife, and is wholly unimpressed with the city’s shopping scene. He spots an opportunity.

1909: Having established the company, Selfridges Retail Ltd., in 1908, Selfridge opens a flagship on London’s Oxford Street, designed by American architect Daniel Burnham. Selfridge invests 400,000 pounds — equivalent to 50 million pounds today — and builds the store at the less-fashionable end of Oxford Street.

Selfridge’s innovative approach to retailing saw him put planes and controversial tango dancers on show, all in a bid to make shopping entertaining. He was the first to establish a beauty department on the ground floor — cleverly masking the smell of manure from horse-drawn carriages. He also opened a pet shop and what was, at the time, the world’s biggest bookshop.

1926: The Selfridge Provincial Stores is formed, bringing together the various businesses acquired by Selfridge since 1918.

1940: The Selfridge Provincial Stores is sold to the John Lewis Partnership, which operates John Lewis & Partners department stores and Waitrose & Partners supermarkets.

1951: British department store chain Lewis’s of Liverpool purchases Selfridges for 3.4 million pounds, equivalent to about $153 million in current value.

1965: Lewis’s is sold to the Sears Group, owned by Charles Clore, for 63 million pounds, or $1.77 billion at current exchange.

1979: Roy Northway Stephens becomes CEO and MD of Selfridges, jazzing up its sleepy image and conjuring the spirit of Harry Gordon Selfridge by providing entertainment and spectacle. Sears had asked Stephens to take the store upmarket, and Stephens describes his new job as “the realization of a dream.”

During his tenure, he dedicated the store’s windows to “Star Wars,” when “The Empire Strikes Back” sequel was released in Britain in 1980; invited the Muppets and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into the Christmas Grotto, and brought in a range of celebrities and VIPs, including the Olympic medalist Sebastian Coe; author Barbara Cartland, and the journalist and broadcaster Alan Whicker for personal appearances.

1990: Sears splits Selfridges from Lewis’s, and places Lewis’s in administration a year later.

1996: Vittorio Radice joins Selfridges as managing director, and under his leadership, the department store sees yet another dramatic revival, with lots of themed store takeovers, special products — and a buzzy atmosphere. Radice leaves after the sale to the Weston family in 2003 and joins Marks & Spencer. He later joins La Rinascente, which was brought by the Central Group in 2011 for 205 million euros, or $233 million at the time.

1998: Selfridges is demerged from Sears and floated on the London Stock Exchange. The retailer opens a branch at Manchester’s Trafford Centre.

2002: The retailer opens another store in Manchester’s Exchange Square.

2003: Retailer Galen Weston, a member of Canada’s Weston family, purchases Selfridges for 598 million pounds, or $1.14 billion at the time, and forms the Selfridges Group, which eventually encompasses Brown Thomas and Arnotts in Ireland, Holt Renfrew in Canada and De Bijenkorf in the Netherlands.

Selfridges opens its store in the Bullring in Birmingham, England, the same year. The store resembles a spaceship and was designed by Future Systems.

2004: Weston’s daughter, Alannah, is named creative director. On her watch, the store opens what was, at the time, the world’s largest men’s and women’s shoe departments and launches the new women’s designer galleries and a dedicated men’s designer space. She also presides over the opening of the Wonder Room, a space spanning nearly 20,000 square feet and selling luxury jewelry, watches and gifts.

2007: The British author Lindy Woodhead publishes “Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge” about the wild life of Harry Gordon Selfridge. The book is turned into a hit television series that runs from 2013 to 2016, starring Jeremy Piven.

2007-18: The store embarks on ambitious refurbishment projects, investing upward of 300 million pounds to overhaul the ground floor of its Oxford Street flagship and building the largest luxury accessories hall in the world, a 60,000-square-foot expanse of large and small leather goods, gifts, jewelry and eyewear.

In those years, Selfridges also plans annual, themed store takeovers that capture the zeitgeist and anticipate many trends. Themes include Radical Luxury, Good Nature, Music Matters, Agender and the Beauty Project, which looked at themes such as body positivity years before the industry caught on.

2018: Selfridges promotes company stalwarts Paul Kelly, Anne Pitcher and Simon Forster. Pitcher succeeds Kelly as managing director of Selfridges Group.

2019: Alannah becomes chair of the Selfridges Group, a role previously held by her father. Her promotion was part of a planned succession within the family business.

2020: Selfridges unveils Project Earth, committing to a series of science-based targets. It says that by 2025 the group will ensure all of its “environmentally impactful materials” come from certifiably sustainable sources.

As part of that plan, the group’s stores are now powered by 100 percent green energy, while the company has committed to a net-zero carbon footprint by 2050 in line with the Paris Agreement. There are also plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 64 percent by 2030.

The same year, Andrew Keith joins Selfridges as managing director. Keith was most recently president of Lane Crawford and Joyce in Hong Kong, a role he took up in 2011.

April 2021: Galen Weston dies at 80. He is survived by his wife Hilary and his children, Alannah Weston Cochrane and Galen Weston Jr.

June 2021: Selfridges Group declines to comment on press reports that it has received an unsolicited offer of more than 4 billion pounds for its U.K. and Irish businesses. It signs on Credit Suisse to evaluate offers. About half of that 4 billion pounds is said to be tied up in retail property.

July 2021: Selfridges confirms that it is exploring a sale as advisers at Credit Suisse send out an information memorandum to potential investors.

December 2021: Thailand’s Central Group teams with Signa in Austria to buy Selfridges. The purchase reunites Radice, who is now an executive at Central Group, with the British retailer.

Central is controlled by the Chirathivat family, and operates retail businesses in Thailand and Vietnam as well as Europe. Its holdings include Rinascente in Italy; Illum in Denmark, and KaDeWe, Oberpollinger and Alsterhaus in Germany.

Signa Group is a an international investment and industrial holding company that’s active in the real estate, retail and media business sectors. It was founded in 1999, and describes itself as one of Europe’s most important real estate investors.