Selfridges opens world’s largest shoe department

There are shoe departments and then there are The Shoe Galleries at Selfridges, which take customers on a retail journey of six ‘galleries’, 11 shoe boutiques and 4,000 pairs of shoes on display over a whole floor.

It's a shoe wonderland and beats the recent 'biggest shoe department' record over at Saks in New York hands down.

The Shoe Galleries was designed by architect Jamie Fobert to be a place of exploration within Selfridges, recently voted the world’s best department store. Actually it's like there are layers of shoe rooms to discover and explore from high-street to designer to what I would call uber-designer.



‘Imagine you are in a gallery,’ says Selfridges’ director of accessories Sebastian Manes. ‘From the entrance you see a succession of doorways and at the end a huge window flooding the space with daylight. Your journey begins at the front, with shoes from the best of the high street. Slowly you begin to travel through different galleries until you reach the end – the couture designer gallery, flanked by Chanel and Louboutin, and a vision of Eden – the new suspended garden at Selfridges.’



I hunted out some serious Alexander Wang heels, some great grey Givenchy booties, those Balenciaga op-art pumps and the must-have Celine courts for this autumn. I hear Selfridges has negotiated plenty of exclusives with designers for the various rooms. Meanwhile there are shop-in-shops for the likes of Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin and Repetto that are designed to reflect the homes of each of the designers.


What I also heard on the industry grapevine was that because D&G didn't get one of the designer boutique 'rooms' flanking the main designer floor they had a bit of a disagreement with management and pulled out of selling to Selfridges completely. That's £1m revenue in shoes alone! Hissy fit or what!!!

Selfridges: Cubed Futurism

Trust Selfridges to be fastest off the blocks - literally.  To welcome the new season with open arms at the same time as kissing goodbye a record summer sale the UK department store launched its new autumn/winter designer collections earlier than ever last week with a brand new Cubism Futurism window and in-store VM display. 

One of their best yet this creative smacks with visual impressiveness at the same time as inspiring a colourful and graphic new season wardrobe wishlist among us all (think Balenciaga, Jil Sander, Prada, Matthew Williamson, Louise Goldin) . The theme is steeped in flourescence and stark contrasts between black and alternate primary colours with the design celebrating the futuristic looks seen across many of the designer collection in-store a spokesperson says. 

In their seasonal statement the retailer said the launch was two weeks ahead of schedule due to the "fastest selling season on record" - with some items already having to be re-ordered. 

Check out these windows for high visual impact and how they make the cubic trend work across graphic, VM and retro-futurism design appeal.

Such drama in the name of fashion: "Cubic Futurism is also an apology to the comeback theme of the Super Heroes (think Dr Who on acid, Heroes, Tron, Speed Racer, etc." And all this while the Rubik's Cube races get faster and faster on  You Tube. How fast can you go?