Author: Lindy Woodhead
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812985052
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 353
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Book Description
If you lived at Downton Abbey, you shopped at Selfridge’s. Harry Gordon Selfridge was a charismatic American who, in twenty-five years working at Marshall Field’s in Chicago, rose from lowly stockboy to a partner in the business which his visionary skills had helped to create. At the turn of the twentieth century he brought his own American dream to London’s Oxford Street where, in 1909, with a massive burst of publicity, Harry opened Selfridge’s, England’s first truly modern built-for-purpose department store. Designed to promote shopping as a sensual and pleasurable experience, six acres of floor space offered what he called “everything that enters into the affairs of daily life,” as well as thrilling new luxuries—from ice-cream soda to signature perfumes. This magical emporium also featured Otis elevators, a bank, a rooftop garden with an ice-skating rink, and a restaurant complete with orchestra—all catering to customers from Anna Pavlova to Noel Coward. The store was “a theatre, with the curtain going up at nine o’clock.” Yet the real drama happened off the shop floor, where Mr. Selfridge navigated an extravagant world of mistresses, opulent mansions, racehorses, and an insatiable addiction to gambling. While his gloriously iconic store still stands, the man himself would ultimately come crashing down. The true story that inspired the Masterpiece series on PBS • Mr. Selfridge is a co-production of ITV Studios and Masterpiece “Enthralling . . . [an] energetic and wonderfully detailed biography.”—London Evening Standard “Will change your view of shopping forever.”—Vogue (U.K.)
Author: Fergus Mason
Publisher: BookCaps Study Guides
ISBN: 1629172928
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 56
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Book Description
Just for a moment try to put every shopping trip you’ve ever made out of your head. Imagine a different world. Imagine that all the goods for sale are locked away in cabinets and to handle them, or even to examine them closely, you need to ask a shop assistant to open it up for you. Imagine that within seconds of entering a store a floorwalker approaches you and asks if you’re planning to buy something – then, when you say “I’m just looking,” rudely tells you to leave. Imagine any attempt to return faulty or unsuitable goods being met with ridicule, obstruction or a flat refusal to help you. Until the late 19th century people didn’t have to imagine that; it was reality. For anyone alive today a visit to the average store back then would convince you that they didn’t really want to sell you anything. The idea of customer service was an alien one. Stores sold things. If you wanted to buy them, fine. If you didn’t they weren’t really interested. Browsing was strongly discouraged and impulse buys were almost unheard of. Shopping was something you did when you had to. It certainly wasn’t something anyone enjoyed. Then, in the late 1880s, one man came along and changed all that. His name was Harry Gordon Selfridge and this is the story of his life.
Author: Lise Sanders
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
ISBN: 0814210171
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
"In Consuming Fantasies: Labor, Leisure, and the London Shopgirl, 1880-1920, Lise Shapiro Sanders examines the cultural significance of the shopgirl - both historical figure and fictional heroine - from the end of Queen Victoria's reign through the First World War. As the author reveals, the shopgirl embodied the fantasies associated with a growing consumer culture: romantic adventure, upward mobility, and the acquisition of material goods. Reading novels such as George Gissing's The Odd Women and W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage as well as short stories, musical comedies, and films, Sanders argues that the London shopgirl appeared in the midst of controversies over sexual morality and the pleasures and dangers of London itself. Sanders explores the shopgirl's centrality to modern conceptions of fantasy, desire, and everyday life for working women and argues for her as a key figure in cultural and social histories of the period. This study will appeal to scholars, students, and enthusiasts of Victorian and Edwardian life and literature."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Lindy Woodhead
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 1847659640
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
The basis for the hit TV show Mr Selfridge In 1909, the largest department store in London's West End, designed and built from scratch, opened in Oxford Street in a glorious burst of publicity. The mastermind behind the façade was American retail genius Harry Gordon Selfridge: maverick businessman, risk-taker, dandy and one of the greatest showmen the retail world has ever known. His talents were to create the seduction of shopping, and as his success and fame grew, so did his glittering lifestyle: mansions, yachts, gambling, racehorses - and mistresses. From the glamour of Edwardian England, through the turmoil of the Great War and the heady excesses of the 1920s and beyond, Selfridges Department Store was 'a theatre with the curtain going up at 9 o'clock each morning'. Mr Selfridge reveals the captivating story of the rise and fall of the man who revolutionised the way we shop. 'Lively and entertaining' Sunday Telegraph 'Will change your view of shopping forever' Vogue 'Harry Selfridge revolutionised the way we shop ... fascinating' Daily Mail
Author: Gordon Honeycombe
Publisher: Conran Octopus
ISBN:
Category : Department stores
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
Author: Elizabeth Outka
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195372697
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
"Examples of faux authenticity abound in today's marketplace. Trading on the commercial appeal of the ersatz real, however, is far from a twenty-first century invention. As Consuming Traditions investigates, the allure of commodified nostalgia and the selling of the "genuine" article emerged as powerful forces in early twentieth-century Britain." "Elizabeth Outka redefines the debates surrounding literary modernism and the market as she explores the marketing of authenticity, a crucial but overlooked development in the history of modernity. With an interdisciplinary approach that probes novels, plays, advertisements, and architecture, Consuming Traditions presents a convincing case for how the "commodified authentic" - the selling of objects and places allegedly free of commercial taint - marks a critical turn in modern culture and offers a new way to understand literary modernism and its complex negotiation of tradition and novelty. Drawing on cultural studies, theories of consumerism, and works by Shaw, Forster, Woolf, Joyce, and others, Outka examines how literature both enacted and critiqued the larger revolution in material culture."--BOOK JACKET.
Author: Dominic Wilcox
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1473521262
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 128
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Book Description
Ingenious and amusing illustrated inventions from the brilliant mind of Dominic Wilcox 'I love this book. Laugh-out-loud funny. I want a salty thumb lolly now!' Harry Hill As we go about our day-to-day business, we see the same stuff every day. The bath, the fridge, the lamp post, the bicycle, the tree... so far, so humdrum. But not if you are Dominic Wilcox. Dominic sees things a little differently. For him, inside each of these everyday things are hundreds of surprising ideas waiting to be discovered. The Portable Bottom Seat, the Sick Bag Beard, Wrist Nets for the Butterfingered – Dominic's unexpected inventions, conflations and modifications promise to make your life that little bit easier, or at least more amusing. Normal will never seem quite so normal again.
Author: Bethan Alexander
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 104004462X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
This text provides a holistic, integrated and in-depth perspective on the growing field of customer experience (CX), in a fashion context. Merging three core perspectives – academic, creative agency and retailer – the book takes a chronological approach to tracing the evolution of customer experience from the physical store, to omnichannel through channel convergence to consider the future of fashion retailing and customer experience. Beginning with the theoretical perspective, customer experience evolution in a fashion retail context is traced, considering the definition of customer experience, physical retail, the digitalisation of customer experience, omni-channel retail, in-store technologies and envisioning future retail CX. The retail creative agency perspective looks at how to locate and design customer experience journeys, designing harmonised CX across retail brand environments online and offline, responsible retailing and taking a human-centric approach to create visceral, wellbeing-based experiences. Finally, the retailer perspective explores real-life case studies of great customer experience from international brands, including Zara, Nike, Ecoalf, To Summer and Anya Hindmarch. Pedagogical features to aid understanding are built in throughout, including chapter objectives and reflective questions. Comprehensive and unique in its approach, Customer Experience in Fashion Retailing is recommended reading for students studying Fashion Retail Management, Customer Experience, Retail Design and Visual Merchandising, Fashion Psychology and Fashion Marketing.
Author: Gavin Ambrose
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350034223
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 212
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Book Description
While many other areas of design have commercial aspects, the success of a piece of packaging design is inextricably linked with its ability to sell a product. Packaging the Brand discusses the implications of this commercial function for a designer. It explores methods of visually communicating the value of a product to its target audience and examines the entire lifespan of a piece of packaging: from its manufacture and construction, to its display in various retail environments, to its eventual disposal and the associated environmental concerns.
Author: Vilma Barr
Publisher: Business Expert Press
ISBN: 1951527917
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 500
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Book Description
Sustainability for Retail is an important international overview of the role of retail in the worldwide climate crisis. Its focus is on apparel and related retail products, from supply chain to the selling floor. The retail industry is identified as the source of 10 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. This book presents the notable successes that have been achieved in the private sector. Interviews with leaders ranging from multi-nationals to specialty collections, to reports on innovative technological advancements. Behind each story and report is the strong determination of an individual or the commitment of organizational management to establish and uphold practices that cut the energy use, support providers of raw materials with living wages and lifestyles, and mount campaigns to educate the consumer on supporting products and the overall circular economy. Resale, reuse, and remake comprise an escalating movement that didn’t exist even a decade ago to extend the life cycle of products that previously had a high potential of becoming landfill. It has become big business, sanctioned with promotions across the retail board, from icons of mass merchandising to small local workshops. Sustainability for Retail offers businesses and consumers insight into beneficial decision-making for themselves and for the greater environment. The authors provide a comprehensive guide to the forces driving the retail sustainability movement.
