Selfridges has unveiled plans today to create the world’s largest accessories hall at its Oxford Street flagship.
The iconic department store plans to triple the size of its current accessories space to 60,000 sq ft, which will house more than 70,000 handbags and other accessories.
Designed in collaboration with David Chipperfield Architects, the new space will have no internal dividing walls and will open in three main phases over the next two years, the first phase of which was unveiled today and the last of which is scheduled for completion by Spring 2018.
The new section unveiled today includes concessions for 10 brands, Balenciaga, Céline, Chloé, Chrome Hearts, Gucci, Loewe, Mulberry and Saint Laurent, as well as four concept spaces from Alexander McQueen, Anya Hindmarch, Jimmy Choo and Stella McCartney.
As well as handbags the halls offers purses, scarves, sunglasses, jewellery and “tech trinkets” and is home to a new 14-seat cocktail bar called The Fount which is run by renowned mixologist Ryan Chetiyawardana, widely known as Mr Lyan.
The Fount cocktail bar
Selfridges believes that when it it completed the new hall with surpass the current world’s largest accessories hall at Galeries Lafayette‘s flagship store on Boulevard Haussman in Paris. It will be accessed by a new triple-height entrance on Duke Street, which runs adjacent to Oxford Street, that is currently in development.
The creation of the new Duke Street facade revisits the vision of the store’s founder Harry Gordon Selfridge to create a “unified quadrant” within the Oxford, Orchard, Wigmore and Duke streets that surround the store.
Selfridges has been undergoing a £300m refurbishment which has resulted in the creation of several new spaces in the store such as the Body Studio and Designer Studio on floor three.
