The deeds of the house were in the name of Prince Wiasemsky, Serge having adopted the title. The principal branch of the Wiasemsky family, headed by Prince Vladimir, was not amused. Vladimir, his married sister Princess Lydia Wassiltchikoff and his mother had escaped the turmoil of the Russian Revolution, and settled in the south of France, but his two brothers had not been so lucky: Prince Boris was murdered by his estate workers after having his eyes gouged out, and Prince Dimitri was shot. Memories of these atrocities were still fresh, so it is hardly surprising that Prince Vladimir was less than impressed when the “self-styled Prince Serge Wiasemsky,” as he caustically called him, took it upon himself to form a movement called the Russian National Progressive Party. When Alexis Aladin, leader of the Russian Peasant Union, was in London that year for talks with Ramsay MacDonald, he shared a platform with Serge, who told the Sunday Times, “the land of Russia belongs to the people. My party has no connection with, and totally disagrees with and disapproves of the monarchical group.” By this he meant the Romanovs rather than his own supposed ancestors the Rurikids. The exiled Romanov Grand Duke Michael, who had previously enjoyed the Selfridges’ hospitality, declined an invitation to their next party.
Whatever Serge thought of the illfated Russian monarchy, he relentlessly clung to his own title, hobnobbing with other Russians who had married well, among them Prince Serge Obolensky and his bride, the twenty-year-old Alice Astor, who had inherited a trust fund of $5 million when her father went down with the Titanic. Young Tatiana Wiasemsky made an angelic bridesmaid when Prince George Imeretinsky married the society beauty Stella Wright.
Meanwhile, Harry Selfridge had also parted with Harrose Hall on Lake Geneva, reportedly selling it for a tidy sum. The sale prompted his elderly mother to make a trip to Chicago to see the house once more, visiting old friends both there and in Washington. Chicago, cheerfully described in the hit song of 1922 as “That Toddlin’ Town,” was a city under siege. By the time Lois Selfridge arrived in November 1923, it was reported that over 60 percent of the city’s police were involved in one way or another in the liquor business. Al Capone had established himself as a leading light in organized crime, his own employees running over 160 bars and gambling houses. Capone, having “seen off” three rival families with an assortment of weapons ranging from bombs to Thompson submachine guns, was driven around town in a $30,000 bulletproof Cadillac flanked by posses of armed hoodlums. Madam Selfridge, a lifelong supporter of Prohibition, could now see for herself what it had created—a speakeasy life of violence and crime, swinging along at a fast and furious rate.
Her trip lasted three months. Although she was away for Christmas, Harry sent out a card to store staff, showing mother and son together in the library at Lansdowne House. The card also bore a message: “What a wonderful privilege it is to live—to see—to hear—to think—to learn!” His mother, however, did not have long to live. In Washington the following February, she contracted pneumonia. Harry rushed over to America and brought her home on the SS Berengaria. They landed at Southampton on Saturday, February 23, but by Monday she was dead. Her funeral took place at St. Mark’s in Highcliffe, where she was buried next to her daughter-in-law Rose. The store, draped mournfully, albeit exquisitely, in black, closed for the day, while the tiny Hampshire parish church was filled with flowers sent by, among others, Mr. and Mrs. Adolph S. Ochs (owners of the New York Times), John Lawrie (the chairman of Whiteley’s), the Blumenfelds and Mr. and Mrs. John Shedd from Chicago. There was also a spectacularly beautiful bouquet bearing an engraved card from “La Princesse de Monaco.” The twenty-six-year-old Princess Charlotte had sent equally stupendous flowers to Rose’s funeral five years earlier and was evidently a close friend of the Selfridge family. Though no trace exists of the origins of this intriguing relationship, Princess Charlotte was certainly in need of friends.
Charlotte had always been sneered at by Monaco society. Her mother, Marie Louvet, had been a cabaret singer in an Algerian nightclub when she first met Prince Louis II of Monaco, then an officer in the French Foreign Legion. Their illegitimate daughter Charlotte Louise was born in Algeria in 1898, and her lonely upbringing was financed by her father. Since Prince Louis never married, young Charlotte became, dynastically speaking, the last chance for the Monaco ruling family. In the absence of an heir, the throne would pass to a German cousin, and with it would go the Grimaldi share of the lucrative profits from the casino. So, by special decree, Charlotte was formally adopted by her father, created a princess, and hastily married off to the “dandy” Count Pierre de Polignac who, during their uneasy marriage, fathered Prince Rainier and Princess Antoinette. The dynasty now being secure, profits made in what Somerset Maugham wittily described as “a sunny place for shady people” continued apace. Selfridge himself, although he gambled at Monte Carlo, preferred the vast municipal casino in Nice, where he kept his own apartment and where, for a while, the exotic Princess Charlotte lived until she set up home with René Gigier, France’s most infamous jewel thief. She and Harry would remain friends until his death.
An inveterate traveler, Selfridge liked nothing better than rushing to board the boat train at Victoria for the journey to Paris. He was an early passenger on the Calais–Nice–Rome Express, whose clattering wooden sleeping cars took travelers south to the newly fashionable summer playgrounds of the sun-seeking rich; and he was ecstatic when in December 1922 the new First Class–only Calais–Méditerranée Express service—known simply as le train bleu—was launched.
Years later, a senior guard on the boat train from Victoria recalled Mr. Selfridge fondly: “He crossed nearly every week, either to Le Touquet or on to Paris … he once went all the way to Cannes just for six hours’ sunshine. He was the most remarkable person—brisk, methodical, and so original. He had the gift of getting to sleep immediately but would jump up in the morning, brush his hair and be fully alert—the only passenger to think of bringing his disembarkation card on board pre-prepared and to put his American passport in a colored silk folder so it could be easily identified.”
In April 1924, the vast extension to the store was officially opened. Much to Harry’s annoyance, there was still a gap between the original, eastern building and the new section that was being argued about by builders, bankers, and borough councillors, but belowground, the Bargain Basement stretched unbroken from Duke Street to Orchard Street, covering an area of three and a half acres. Most of the upper-floor departments were replicated “belowstairs,” where customers enjoyed keen prices, cool white walls, white marble floors and, for the first time in England, cool air, courtesy of the very latest in American mechanical wizardry, a “comfort cooling” system. Air-conditioning was the quantum leap that created a comfortable environment out of artificial, windowless spaces. To London’s shoppers in 1924, it was a revelation.
When King George V opened the vast British Empire Exhibition at Wembley later that month, Selfridge’s had nineteen speakers wired around the store so customers could hear the king. One chap taking tea in the Palm Court Restaurant was so awed he stood to attention. “It’s the king speaking,” he said. In the days of silent films, people were enchanted by the wonders of radio. Wembley Stadium itself was built as the centerpiece of the BEE, as the vast exhibition was fondly called. Ironically for Selfridge’s, part of the enormous plot of land that had been compulsorily purchased had been the original location of the store’s staff sports club. With the money from the enforced sale, Selfridge bought a fifteen-acre plot in Preston Road, between Wembley and Harrow, where the staff held teas, supper dances, and quiz nights in a handsome pavilion after a hectic Saturday and Sunday afternoon of football, netball, cricket, and tennis matches. Over twenty-seven million people poured into Wembley to see the exhibits, travel on experimental railways, inspect a coal mine, visit an amusement park, and buy such things as the first-ever commemorative stamps issued by the Post Office—which were also on sale in the Selfridge’s branch post office on the store’s fourth floor.
&
nbsp; Selfridge, who had used the concept of a postwar World’s Fair as the central theme of his many after-dinner talks to various business groups, might justifiably have felt hurt at not being invited to join the Exhibition Organizing Committee. He made up for it with his own displays in the store, where Empire “flags, emblems, and decorations” were on show in a vast department selling ephemera such as printed cotton Union Jacks priced at one shilling a dozen and portraits of the king at 1/11d each. Selfridge had long celebrated Empire Day with a staff party on the roof, and to inaugurate the BEE he invited Lord Beaverbrook to entertain the staff with what turned out to be a rousing speech.
Harry Selfridge believed in engaging emotionally with his workforce and he had an innate understanding of the importance of ritual for customers and employees alike. He made a point of observing Armistice Day. Each year since the war, on November 11, a bugler had stepped out onto the central balcony to sound the Last Post at 11:00 A.M. After a two-minute silence came the Reveille. It was a moving experience for all who heard it, and it continued each year until Selfridge was evicted from the store. Creating “experience” was central to his beliefs. His critics said it had less to do with shopping and more to do with theatricals. But he knew—as few other retailers did—that emotion and experience formed a huge part of what customers craved. “The whole art of merchandising,” he said, “consists of appealing to the imagination. Once the imagination is moved, the hand goes automatically to the purse.” Years later, one of his directors, Frank Chitham, who left to work for D. H. Evans, said, “He had the closest insight into customer psychology. When he was expressing ideas they came alive in your mind.”
After the morning tour, there was usually an ideas session in the Chief’s office where his desk was flanked by the Stars and Stripes and the Union Jack. Reports on new trends in England and France or new gadgetry from America that he might usefully use in Oxford Street were discussed. Sometimes he would just sit for a while, hands clasped behind his head, looking out of the window at the clouds high above Oxford Street. No one ever dared interrupt him. And then the ideas would flow. Some were prosaic. If he saw that it was going to rain he would have someone call to check on the number of raincoats and umbrellas and ask that extra stock be put on to the floor.
In the new men’s department, opened in 1924, the ex-world champion Melbourne Inman challenged Tom Carpenter at the billiards table. An ice rink was opened on the roof terrace where the American champion ice skater Howard Nicholson and his partner Freda Whittaker—the Torville and Dean of their day—enthralled the public, helping to establish the trend for skating. Poppy Wingate, England’s first female professional golfer, gave demonstrations in the ladies’ sportswear department. All these events were supported by linked merchandise displays often marked at “special prices,” which invariably ran for the rest of the week. The events made news because Selfridge’s pressroom was open to all, whether news reporters or sports or women’s-page writers. Once they had met and photographed whichever sports star or stage star was in the store that week, only one task remained: the celebrity in question had to sign the Chief’s autograph window with the diamond-tipped stick before a chauffeured car whisked them back to their hotel. Finally, their visit was reported in the store’s own house magazine, The Key.
In what the press called the “Ball of the Season,” in the early summer of 1924, Selfridge threw open the doors of Lansdowne House for another Royal Charity Gala, this time to raise funds to endow hospital beds. The guest list included the British royal princes Henry and George, their cousins the Marquis and Marchioness of Milford Haven, Princess Marie Louise and Princess Helena Victoria. The seat of honor, however, was given to Princess Serge Wiasemsky (née Rosalie Selfridge), and her cameo, charmingly drawn by Rex Whistler complete with coronet, adorned the front cover of the program. Selfridge pulled out all stops to put on a show: Garrard’s and Carrington’s loaned gold plate; no less than five champagne houses kept supplies flowing freely through the night; a jazz and classical band played; and Ivor Novello’s mother—herself a noted musician—put her celebrated Clara Novello Davies Male Choir through their paces for the society audience.
More of a café society crowd poured into the store at the end of October, to celebrate at the third general election–night party when two thousand guests whooped it up on both the rooftop ice rink and the ballroom roller-skating rink. Fearful of gate-crashers, the store’s smarter staff—drawn from the growing band who had attended public school—were on duty at the entrance to vet, and sometimes veto, the arriving guests. Those admitted included Joseph Pulitzer Jr., Freda Dudley Ward, Sir Gerald du Maurier, Ivor Novello, Barbara Cartland, the Asquiths, the Aga Khan, the McAlpines, the very rich Lady Louis Mountbatten, and Marshall Field’s equally rich granddaughter Gwendoline and her husband, the Scottish baronet Charlie Edmonstone. The hottest actress in town, Tallulah Bankhead, was there with the bestselling author Michael Arlen, whose book The Green Hat was top of the lists in every lending library. “The whole world was at Selfridge’s,” enthused Tatler breathlessly.
That night the Conservative Party won the general election and the Bright Young People who would personify the Roaring Twenties came of age. They couldn’t have cared less who won the election; they just wanted to have fun. The next five years would be spent battling with the new home secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicks, who tried his best to stop them. Called “Jix” by the cartoonists, who mercilessly lampooned him, Sir William was a High Victorian disciplinarian who represented everything about the establishment that the young loathed.
Jix loathed a lot of things, particularly “nonregistered aliens.” When he discovered there were 272,000 of them in Britain, he instigated a visa system so strict that merely traveling without the precious document meant a spell in prison before being shipped straight back home. He didn’t care much for sex either—especially any forms of affection in public, which to his eye were “gross indecencies.” He viewed most modern authors, artists, and sculptors with grave suspicion, unilaterally censoring their work. A lifelong teetotaler who had yearned to see alcohol prohibited, he also had an absolute fixation about nightclubs, calling them “drug-filled sewers of society,” while contemporary dancing was a “disease against civilization.”
When an overseas visitor, awed by the scale of the home secretary’s impressive office and vast staff, asked Sir William what he did there, Sir William replied: “It is I who am the ruler of England.” To a certain extent he was, at least as far as law, order, and licensing were concerned. In all these things, he was ably assisted by his treasured friend DORA. Many who yearned for the Defence of the Realm Act to be modified to suit the times, waited in vain. Jix took it out, dusted it down and applied its regulatory powers with relish. The police were instructed to take a stern view of public morality and an even sterner view of nightclubs. Naturally, they made mistakes. A girl arrested in Liverpool and charged with being a prostitute turned out to be virgo intacta. When the former Liberal MP Sir Leo Money was arrested and charged for merely sitting next to a young woman on a bench in Hyde Park, his case was dismissed. Sir Basil Home Thomson, ex-chief of London’s CID and one-time head of British Intelligence, was less fortunate. Found in a compromising situation with an actress called Thelma de Lava, he declared in his defense that he was researching material for a book on vice in the West End. The magistrates were unimpressed and fined him five pounds with costs.
Harry never needed to risk a romp in the park—his children were now grown-up and had an insouciant attitude toward his affairs—but the matter of a visa was pressing. To obtain one he enlisted the help of friends in high places—Sir Reginald McKenna, chairman of the Midland Bank, various members of the Masonic Lodge frequented by the home secretary, and Ralph Blumenfeld, editor of the Daily Express. The latter was popular with Sir William, not just because his newspaper adopted a strict view of morality, but also because he had founded the Anti-Socialist Union, a group heartily approved of by Jix. Thus Selfridg
e acquired a letter on Home Office stationery allowing him residential status. Things weren’t as easy for his son-in-law Serge, whose Russian National Progressive Party was thought rather dubious. Conveniently, however, Alexander Onou, head of the Russian Refugees Permit Office in London, came to the rescue, issuing “Serge de Bolotoff, Prince Wiasemsky” with the necessary photographic identity card confirming his refugee status.
In many ways, the jazz decade suited Selfridge. He had the ability to enter into the mood of the moment and was always enchanted by youth, which kept him if not literally, then certainly figuratively, on his toes. “Let me see, Mr. Selfridge,” said a reporter from the Manchester Daily Dispatch in 1924, “you’re sixty I believe?” The answer was merely an agreeable smile. He was sixty-eight. Had he coupled the dignity of age and experience with youthful zest, his life might have taken a different turn. As it was, surrounded by a circle of sycophants and an eager press, he believed he was invincible. With no one to restrain him, his hedonistic cravings raged unchecked. By 1925, he had crossed the line.
Fueled by the unrelenting fashion for everything new, business was booming. Since it had first been seen in the Broadway show Runnin’ Wild, the Charleston had quite literally swept everyone off their feet. In London there were Charleston competitions and Charleston clothes. Flimsy underwear, especially Directoire knickers and silk chemises, beaded headbands, feathered fans, and the essential “flappers’ ” footwear—shoes with a powder compact in the jeweled buckle, whether for cheeks or cocaine—flew out of Selfridge’s. Skirts were short and nights were long. Dance halls and nightclubs were crowded, and parents of all classes despaired of their offspring’s passion for dancing. Even the king was alarmed, writing to his wife, “I see David [the Prince of Wales] continues to dance every night and most of the night. People who don’t know will begin to think that either he is mad or the biggest rake in Europe. Such a pity.” Young people didn’t think anything of the sort. They loved the informality, the energy and the gaiety of the prince; they loved him because he danced. Such things, however, are not founded on substance. As the Prince of Wales became famous for his clothes, his lifestyle, his girlfriends and his aura of celebrity, he too was heading for disaster.
Shopping, Seduction & Mr. Selfridge Page 21