The one thing that could save Oxford Street...
Department stores are closing, most see it as a dump – but there may still be some hope left, says
As if the ludicrous fake hillock at the far western end of Oxford Street, which opened to universal ridicule this summer, wasn’t sufficiently treacherous, another nail has just been pounded into the plywood coffin that is Britain’s mother of all high streets. House of Fraser is closing its flagship store at No318 in January. The one that’s a clapped out credit card’s throw from John Lewis’s flagship, and in spitting distance of the hollowed out cave that was Debenhams’ crown jewel. The one that’s been there in some form since 1937, when it was called DH Evans but owned by the same group as now.
Just up the road from House of Fraser, on the other side of the monolithic crossroads known as Oxford Circus, is another empty shell, formerly known as one of the most exciting rites of passage in a fashionhungry teenager’s life: Topshop.
This is the kind of company House of Fraser’s Oxford Street branch has been keeping. Further along are the other boarded up remnants of Philip Green’s Arcadia apocalypse: Wallis, Topman and Miss Selfridge. Coast has gone. Gap too. Even John Lewis is eyeing a change, with a plan to convert a section of its flagship store into offices for rent. Oxford Street, the beating heart of British retail, is currently a dispiriting trudge through the last days of civilisation: a monument to Stuff We Don’t Need and Increasingly Don’t Even Want.
And Can’t Actually Buy Because You Can’t Get Into The Stores. A few weeks ago, on a lovely sunny morn, on Oxford Street’s western stretch, I had
to cross the road to escape a brawl in full flood outside Boots. That’s today’s Oxford Street: best avoided if you can find an alternative route.
Speaking of routes, that’s how many of us had come to think of House of Fraser – a nifty shortcut on rainy days from Wigmore Street to Oxford Circus Tube. Keep your eyes down as you dashed through its empty bag department and uninspiring beauty hall – et voila, you could be on the Tube in a jiffy. Not a brilliant strategy for selling bags, however.
That is the real problem with Oxford Street – it’s just not a pleasant place to be, and won’t be until it is given its oft-rumoured major facelift. Ugly, smelly (it’s those hole-in-the-wall fast food outlets, pumping out their greasy aroma) and egregiously lacking in greenery or anywhere to sit and watch the world float by, it’s absolutely unfit for our new post-covid paradigm, in which retail has to work harder than ever to entice customers into stores.
Other than the loss of jobs, is there anything much to mourn about House of Fraser’s departure? Possibly not, given the absence of retail flair on display there. Service was desultory at best. Not the staff ’s fault – there just weren’t enough of them. Also problematic was the dearth of… oh yes, customers. Might it be that House of Fraser’s adieu is in fact, a Very Good Thing? Another inch of the giant manky plaster being ripped off what ought to be one of the best retail boulevards in the world?
Not that Oxford Street has been that since just about forever. I moved to London in 1984 and, even then, Oxford Street was a dump with two inexplicable bright spots: the valuefor-money M&S flagship at the western end; and the faded dowager Selfridges, also on the west side (good for smoked salmon back then, if not much else). East Oxford Street, by Tottenham Court’s gruesome Tube station and the much hated Centre Point high rise, was the badlands: a rackety ragbag of tourist tat shops.
Granted, for a while in the 90s and Noughties, when Selfridges did its Sleeping Beauty act and became one of the most exciting department stores anywhere and Topshop evolved from Grot Shop to a major fashion powerhouse, it seemed Oxford Street might finally live up to its phenomenally high rents and fame. But no. The great dinosaurs (I refer to the management teams) running all those department stores that anchored the street and kept its rents so exorbitantly high, continued dining out on their fat expense accounts while serving dross on their rails. Once, when I asked one of the key players at Debenhams why the homeware department was so dusty (call me old fashioned, but I quite like taking home new plates that are more or less clean) they looked at me blankly.
Frankly, they deserved to fail. And what on earth has Westminster Council been doing to nurture its golden goose? Zero loos, no stylish outside eating (the Champs-élysées, another tourist inferno, at least has glorious pavement cafes to give it atmosphere) and far too few trees.
The retailers and the council had a captive audience and they blew it. Oxford Street is so globally famous that international and domestic tourists will always flock there if only to take a selfie. Even in its current sorry state, there has been a recent uptick in footfall, with city breaks once again allowed and Christmas looming. We’re a dogged lot, we British shoppers. Even when all that awaits us is ubiquitous mediocrity.
The buccaneering, brave and bold American, Harry Gordon Selfridge, who opened Selfridges at 400 Oxford Street in 1909, would be staggered at the banality of much of what followed. Selfridge viewed retail as a chance to educate, experiment and enfranchise. Department stores were the first spaces women could wander around respectably on their own, the first places where they could spend their independently earned incomes.
All is far from lost, though. At the
What’s needed is a bold, overarching rethink, not piecemeal patch-ups
hated eastern tip, Tottenham Court Road Tube station has finally reopened, after years under construction, as a gleaming transport hub; and Centre Point’s uncompromising 1960s brutalism is now fashionable. Some of the pop-ups and start-ups around it have the undeniable gleam of something that looks suspiciously like optimism.
Bring it on: these could be the next generation of Conrans and Harrys. As for poor, humiliated old Topshop – which currently wouldn’t look out of place in a post war-torn Ridley Scott film – it’s about to become an Ikea.
Meanwhile, some of Oxford Street’s tributaries are becoming almost charming, village-like pockets of independents.
The new “artist’s impression” from PDP Architects for the renovation of the art deco House of Fraser site shows a block with eight storeys instead of its current seven, with taller ceilings and a mix of office space, smaller shops, a gym and a rooftop restaurant – and plenty of plants. Andrew Davidson, a partner at architects PDP London, called it a “once-in-a-hundred-year” transformation.
This is a profoundly important moment for W1. No 318 Oxford Street could set the tone for further developments in the area, and ultimately serve as a template for the entire nation’s shopping experiences. This is about how we want to consume “stuff ” in the coming decades, as well as about the kind of things we want to spend our money on. Digital purchases jumped by almost 20 per cent during 2020, accelerating the
trend away from physical stores. Previously it was thought online shopping would overtake bricks and mortar by 2025, but based on the current trajectory, it could be sooner. Britain may well be the first European country where more clothes are bought online. Welcome to dystopia.
In order to transform British shopping into a celebration of all that’s ingenious and well designed, rather than a mindless reflex, ultimately, what’s needed is a bold, over-arching rethink of entire high streets, not piecemeal patch-ups. One of the fundamental problems with Oxford Street – and high streets up and down the land – has been its mono-approach. Repetitive chain store after chain store, with no cinemas, theatres or restaurants to break up the day and tempt visitors to linger. Did I mention the depressing dearth of green-scaping and gruesome post-war architecture?
Let’s hope 318’s new owners, Publica Properties Establishment, don’t mess it up by chasing the lowest common denominator. They have the chance to set the tone for a dynamic new kind of high street that we can all be proud of.