Saturday, 16 June 2012

Wallpaper Store

Wallpaper Store Biography

It offered amenities such as a post office, a library, rooms dedicated to foreign visitors, and a department dedicated to selling items for clergymen. Shoppers could at last purchase make-up and perfume easily, and the clothes department sold all manners of items - including those that were very hard to find. Women were encouraged to shop there with the slogan "Why Not Spend the Day at Selfridges?" The store quickly became a national institution.

A born entrepreneur, Selfridge came up with some of the most interesting and crowd-pleasing ideas ever seen. In July, 1901, when Louis Blériot’ crash landed his plane in the English Channel, Selfridge had the plane packed, on a train and on display in the store, by ten a.m. the next day. Almost 50,000 people showed up to see it. This tradition for unique displays and unusual exhibitions continues to this day and is a major reason to visit the store.

Selfridge took the company public in 1921. Selfridges became the first department store in the world to open a department dedicated to a new invention: the television. With the stock market crash of 1929 and the worldwide depression of the 1930s, Selfridges found itself in increasing difficulties. The outbreak of World War II only aggravated the company's troubles. Selfridge was finally forced to sell his company, to Lewis's Investment Trust. Selfridge died in poverty at Putney, in south-west London at the age of ninety years old.

Wallpaper Store