Royalty’s own roué, King Edward VII, died in May 1910 and was deeply mourned. Thousands of people got up before dawn to line the route of the funeral procession, hoping to catch a glimpse of his coffin. As the cortège wound its way through London, with his dog Caesar faithfully following behind, many members of the public wept. No one was really in the mood for shopping, and business slipped back at almost every shop and store, except ironically at the grand fashion houses where staff were busy making elaborate dresses for Royal Ascot in, to paraphrase Henry Ford’s slogan for his Model T car, “every color, so long as it’s black.” There were some who felt Ascot should be canceled that year, but the race meeting went ahead in what famously became known as “Black Ascot.”
A few weeks earlier, Selfridge’s had published their figures, which revealed a mixed year. The Blériot effect had by now worn off. Selfridge dipped into his personal funds to the tune of £28,500 to pay the 6 percent interest due to preference shareholders. The store’s figures were not well received, even though it was clear that the enormous sums invested in the store would obviously take time to recoup. Many stores in Oxford Street—even crusty old Marshall & Snelgrove—admitted that their business had “dramatically improved since the opening of Selfridge’s.” Yet the man himself got a poor financial press.
Fortunately for Selfridge, his new best friend, Sir Edward Holden, chairman of the Midland Bank, chose to ignore it. Sir Edward, having become the Midland’s general manager in 1891, had spearheaded such an aggressive expansion program that at the peak of his friendship with Selfridge in 1918, he was presiding over what was then the largest bank in the world. Sir Edward’s vision for international expansion meant he frequently traveled to America, a country he admired and where at one point during the early 1900s he had considered opening branches in New York and Chicago. While that idea never materialized, in 1905, uniquely among British banks, he had the foresight to open a foreign exchange department. Sharing Harry’s belief in the lucrative prospects of the widening travel market, Sir Edward was an enthusiastic supporter of his grand plans.
It wasn’t just the store’s cash deposits that impressed Sir Edward—although on busy days the countinghouse staff shuttle “over the street” from the store to the Midland branch opposite was very gratifying—it was the unstoppable faith, the fanatical enthusiasm with which Selfridge embraced the new era’s potential.
As always, Harry’s arguments were persuasive. He had a masterful command of statistics, using them in a way rarely seen in business at that time. He gathered impressive evidence from his staff, many of whom were sent out daily armed with notebooks and pencils to record everything from the number of people getting off buses outside to the numbers entering rival stores. Rarely a day would pass without Selfridge talking to Sir Edward about his plans, his hopes, his dreams. He couldn’t do any of it without money, and Sir Edward Holden and the Midland Bank had plenty of that to offer. The staff, meanwhile, were becoming used to the mercurial personality of “the Chief” who didn’t hesitate to make spontaneous decisions about dramatic departmental changes.
In 1910, fresh from a visit to Paris where he saw ranges of cosmetics and perfumes openly on sale in the stores, Selfridge decided to expand the beauty department, which until then had been part of the pharmacy department. The cosmetics industry had already begun to form an identity beyond the stage and the street. Independent young women were experimenting with makeup, although since colored cosmetics were still controversial, the problem wasn’t so much about wearing it but rather not wearing too much. New, better-quality products were now being made by Richard Hudnut, Helena Rubinstein, and Bourjois, all producing finer-ground, purer-tinted face powders and rouge. The London Journal of Fashion noted that “rouge, discreetly put on, forms a part of every toilet as worn by fashionable women, although some among these are beginning to use their face powders somewhat too heavily. The startling effect of contrast, by making the lips vividly red and the face very pale, greatly ages a woman. Still … almost everybody uses scarlet lip-salve.”
Even though an unstoppable trend was under way, Selfridge’s sold very little red lipstick, and then only discreetly. The initial purpose of the relocated department was to sell perfume. Selfridge, who adored scent, could identify most of those on the market, and one of his undoubted attractions to women was that he enjoyed talking about such things. He knew if a woman was wearing Houbigant. He loved Guerlain. Firmly believing that perfume heightened the senses, Selfridge wanted to offer the experience to everyday shoppers. Placing perfume inside the front doors of the store was a masterstroke, having the added advantage of disguising less pleasant odors: not everyone made personal hygiene a priority, and the smell of horse manure and exhaust fumes from the street could be overwhelming.
Selfridge wasn’t the first to perfume a public place. In 1870 at the famous Gaiety Theatre, where the impresario John Hollingsworth had presided over a glamorous chorus line of “Gaiety Girls,” the perfumer Eugene Rimmel, otherwise known as “The Scenter of the Strand,” perfumed the pages of the theater’s programs. More erotically, he installed special nozzles to perfume the water in the foyer fountain. A night out at the Gaiety was heady stuff in more ways than one.
Selfridge’s set about putting boxes of face powder side by side with rouge, and swansdown powder puffs next to manicure sets, but above all at that time, they sold perfume. Pure perfume was still vastly expensive. A crystal bottle of fine fragrance could cost up to three pounds or even more, an impossible amount for those earning 10 shillings a week. But thanks to the chemist Georges Darzens’s discovery of the “glycidic method” of synthesizing aldehydes, delicious smells could now be replicated at affordable prices. This meant that Selfridge’s could sell bottles of “Lily of the Valley” priced at 1/6d. The customers of course knew nothing about synthetic chemicals—they were just happy it smelled nice.
All this interest in femininity meant that Selfridge himself became a figure of fascination for all sorts of women. He was an avid “first-nighter,” always sending flowers to a favored actress. There was no difficulty in choosing what to send as a gift to his favorites—he had a store full of such things. He was also gaining the reputation of being generous when the women in his life had financial troubles. Late in 1910, it seems the flame-haired author Elinor Glyn turned to Selfridge in her own hour of need.
Harry had met Elinor not through her sister Lucile but through their mutual friend and her neighbor in Essex, Ralph Blumenfeld, the Daily Express editor who not only championed her work but also paid well to publish it. Unhappily married, Elinor had for some time been having an affair with Lord Curzon, himself now a widower after the untimely death of his wife Mary Leiter in 1906. It was always an affair destined to end in pain. Curzon had great political ambition, three young children, and an expensive lifestyle to maintain. Glyn was married in an era when divorce was unthinkable, and worse, she earned her income writing outré novels. When Curzon ended their relationship in the late autumn of 1910, Elinor was desolate. She was also broke and owed money to Curzon—a debt he expected to be repaid.
Throughout his life, Selfridge was attracted to successful, independent, and famous women. He responded to a brittle sense of humor, was susceptible to girls in gorgeous clothes and, one suspects, was sexually aroused by being “treated mean.” Elinor Glyn pushed every button.
Elinor met up with Selfridge in Paris that autumn. In her diary she called him “the American Napoleon,” admitting that she treated him with indifference despite being flattered by the attention he paid her. He took her out, made a huge fuss of her, no doubt paid all her bills, and ensured she lacked for nothing. It must have amused Selfridge to hand over money that would repay Lord Curzon. He always enjoyed the web of connections with his past.
A quintessential “sugar and sin” Edwardian character, Selfridge never let his true devotion to his family get in the way of collecting beautiful arm-candy. While he was seeing Elinor Glyn, he also began an affair with S
yrie Wellcome, the fallout from which would come home to haunt him.
Syrie was the daughter of Thomas Barnardo, the pious philanthropist who established the Dr. Barnardo’s Homes for orphaned children. In 1901, at the age of twenty-two, Syrie exchanged a controlling father for an equally controlling husband when she married the dour forty-eight-year-old American pharmaceutical millionaire Henry Wellcome. Theirs was a bitterly unhappy and violent marriage, which left her physically as well as mentally scarred.
As Masons, Wellcome and Selfridge subsequently became part of the same close-knit circle. In the manner of the day, men of a certain social standing often dined out without their wives. They had their clubs—Selfridge joined the Reform—and attended endless dinners and speaking events connected with their business interests. But from time to time, wives joined husbands at formal banquets. Syrie, more inclined toward fashionable and bohemian society, and bored by such gatherings, must have been grateful that Harry Selfridge was often on hand to relieve the tedium. He wasn’t a man known for his sense of humor but he did have a sympathetic ear and gave women his undivided attention. He also liked spoiling people. The combination was irresistible.
When her troubled marriage finally collapsed in 1909, Syrie, armed with a generous annual allowance of twenty-four hundred pounds, set about launching herself in society. Beautifully dressed, brittle and, although no beauty, an attractive woman with a flawless complexion, she was thirty and ready to have fun. Officially, she was chaperoned by her widowed mother, a woman who was quite prepared to see her daughter enjoy herself whatever the cost to her reputation. Syrie herself was beginning to form the disciplined good taste that would ultimately evolve into a career as an interior decorator. Initially, however, she spent money rather than made it—and her tastes were expensive. Even an allowance of £2,400 a year wasn’t going to go far, so when Harry came calling, she was happy to see him, gladly accepting his gift of the lease of an expensive house in York Terrace West where she lived with her mother. Their three-year on-and-off affair wasn’t just about the money he generously provided. Harry had wonderful contacts who undoubtedly helped her career.
People close to Selfridge always believed that it was the chase and possession of his beautiful companions that Selfridge enjoyed, the act of conquest being more important than that of sex. Whatever the case, Syrie and Selfridge entered the relationship with their eyes wide open, perfectly matched in what they wanted and needed from their liaison. There was talk that Syrie was frigid, but Rebecca West, who knew a thing or two about sex herself, was dismissive of such rumors. “Their relationship,” she said, “was certainly a love affair. But they were lovers only when it suited them.” For a while it suited Harry very well. But there was never any suggestion that Syrie was his sole companion—he was often seen in the company of other women.
None of the senior staff seemed aware of the curious double life that “the Chief” was leading. That would come later. They did know he worked long hours, arrived early each morning, enthused about work above almost everything else, and was bursting with ideas. Though he maintained a dignified distance from his female staff, nothing about women escaped his attention. On one daily tour he noticed that a sales assistant had bad teeth. He arranged for her to see the staff dentist and his attention turned to toothbrushes. Disappointed with what was on offer in the store, he found the best bristle brush supplier in Europe and bought up the entire stock. Selfridge always bought in large quantities. Suppliers gave him good prices and the press gave him good headlines.
Keen to popularize book buying, he opened a huge “popular” book department, run in conjunction with W. H. Smith. Selfridge ordered sixty thousand velveteen-covered copies of The Book of Common Prayer, pricing it at one shilling. Next came the Selfridge Bible, then the Selfridge World Atlas, the Selfridge Dictionary, the Selfridge Encyclopaedia and the Selfridge Cookery Book, all bought in blocks of at least fifty thousand at a time and keenly priced. The department was designed to have the feel of a library, with tables and reading lights for customers. In a move rare for the time, Selfridge advertised his book department, calling it “the most comfortable bookshop in all Europe.”
In an attempt to emulate the success of budget shopping at Marshall Field, Selfridge’s opened their “Bargain Basement” in 1911. It was promoted as the “place where the thrifty housewife can shop to her advantage,” and though it didn’t have the impact of its American predecessor, slowly but surely it generated a steady profit. The Basement stocked legitimate “seconds,” bought-in bargain lines, discounted sale stock from the upper floors and occasionally truly wonderful hats marked down in price—all piled on tables where customers scrambled to find a bargain. Nothing was individually wrapped and removed for delivery. Bath salts, for example, were simply poured into a brown paper bag with a big scoop and handed over. The main difference between the Basement and the upper floors was not one of price—there were good-value lines on sale elsewhere in the store and good-quality things on sale in the Basement. But upstairs there was premium staff service and goods were delivered. Downstairs, customers generally served themselves and took home what they had bought. That in itself was unusual. If there was one thing that stood out in the golden age of retailing as practiced by the great department stores, it was that everything, absolutely everything, was delivered. Customers never had to carry anything themselves. Purchases were taken to the dispatch department, marked up with an address label and delivered to wherever they had to go.
In the sweltering heat of 1911—the hottest year in living memory—came the Coronation of King George V and Queen Mary. Selfridge regarded the event as being as important as the World’s Fair in Chicago. This was his opportunity to make Londoners take the store to their hearts, to tap into the natural affection that the people held for the royal family and to prove to everyone that here at least was one American with a heartfelt respect for great British traditions.
Selfridge intended to decorate the exterior of his store as if it were a civic building, not just with bunting and flags, but in a grandiose scheme that would reflect both the glory of the monarchy and the glory of shopping at Selfridge’s. He spent hours consulting with the Royal College of Heralds over every minute detail, planning the elaborate décor that would symbolize and honor the concept of royalty past and present. The result was an astonishing sight. A plush red velvet frieze edged with thick corded gold ran along the top of the Ionic columns. The new king’s monogram was embroidered in gold thread in the middle of each section and hung with gold-embroidered medallions emblazoned with royal emblems. Twelve-foot-high shields bore the arms of previous kings, and each shield was surrounded by helmets and gauntlets, halberds and flags, while gilt papier-mâché lions guarded the base of each column. Waxed red and white roses symbolized the houses of Lancaster and York, and at the junction of Duke Street and Oxford Street there was a colossal gold crown. Every shield and portcullis was illuminated, and an astonishing forty-five hundred lightbulbs lit up the night sky. It cost a fortune and hopefully impressed Sir Edward Holden.
The press were certainly impressed, especially since Selfridge had invited the younger members of the extended royal family to watch the show from the first-floor balcony. As the royal procession returned from St Paul’s Cathedral, came down Oxford Street and drew level with the store, the king and queen turned and waved to assorted members of the Teck and other German grand-ducal families, as if the store itself were receiving the royal seal of approval. The newsreels particularly enjoyed this coup de théâtre and the staff were so puffed up with pride they talked of little else for weeks. Whether courtiers were as enthusiastic is doubtful. The British were pretty good at putting on their own show. They didn’t need an American shopkeeper to do it for them.
Selfridge was becoming known for making too much noise. He tried too hard, and the new royal couple were traditionalists. Though an avid shopper, Queen Mary preferred to patronize Harrods, John Barker, and the very sedate Gorringe’s in Buckingh
am Palace Road. Despite Selfridge’s yearning for royal patronage, the queen never once visited the store in his lifetime.
That Selfridge himself was a snob is undeniable. Nothing delighted him more than when his wife’s application for membership of that august body, the Daughters of the American Revolution, was accepted, proving her family’s long American lineage. Yet his snobbery was complex. He genuinely sought recognition for his staff as members of the “profession of retail” and he was bitterly upset when, for example, the store director Percy Best sought membership of his local golf club and was rejected. But his passion for self-aggrandizement was too much for the establishment. Being in trade was one thing. Being publicly proud of it was something entirely different.
Not that Selfridge himself was particularly concerned about criticism from establishment figures. By now he had his own, increasingly influential circle of friends: Albert Stanley (now Lord Ashfield), Ralph Blumenfeld, Thomas Lipton, and Thomas Dewar, whom he fondly called “Tom Tea” and “Tom Whisky.” He discussed spiritualism with Sir Oliver Lodge and played poker with Sir Ernest Cassel, dealing his own heavily embossed cards and using his own beautifully engraved mother-of-pearl chips. His admiration for Sir Oliver Lodge extended to his being given his own reserved table in the store’s Palm Court Restaurant, where on most days he would take tea and meet informally with his fervent admirers. Lodge spent his time in distinguished company. Friends and “believers” of the noted physicist—a brilliant scientist and inventor who was also deeply involved in psychic phenomena—included Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. G. Wells, and Jacob Epstein. The restaurant staff would hover uncertainly around his table, in part curious, in part nervous, for the great man readily admitted he believed in the spirit world and was known to take part in séances.
Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge Page 13