No Noise at Selfridges

No Noise at Selfridges

I have a huge interest in the history of the development of retail.  

From the Grand Exhibition in 1851, to the development of the Bon Marche in Paris and Selfridges in London.  

 The story of  how we got to where we are today and how further technological and social changes will influence the future of  design is where my passion lies.

ITV's period drama 'Mr Selfridge' of which I am a huge fan has been amazing at bringing to life the story of Selfidges department store.  

 

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Harry Gordon Selfridge was such an inspirational pioneer for change, he had a vision and the guts to make it happen despite reservations from nearly everyone around him. 

 For those of you not familiar with Mr Harry Gordon Selfridge heres a little bit of background 

Mr Selfridge was a grafter, he had his first job at age 10 delivering newspapers.

After several other jobs and failing his entrance exams to the United States Naval academy he was employed as a stock boy at Field, Leiter and company (later bought by Macys) where he worked his way up the ladder to becoming a junior partner.

In 1906 whilst holidaying in the UK he noticed how far behind the times British retailers were compared to the Americans so he decided to invest £400,000 in building his own department store in the UK to show us how it should be done!

Promoting the "radical notion of shopping for pleasure rather than necessity" Selfridges department store was born.

Selfridges department store on Oxford street was opened on 15th March 1909 and is the second largest shop in the Uk (Harrods is the largest)

Mr Selfridge made a huge fuss of his window displays, he liked to display educational and scientific exhibits he even displayed Louis Bleriots monoplane in one of the windows after the first crossing of the English Chanel was completed in it.

Selfridges hosted the first public demonstration of television by John Logie Baird in April 1925.

Selfridges department store was far from just a place for shopping, throughout its time it hosted many amenities including a library, restaurants, reading and writing rooms, a first aid room, a Silence room, roof terraced gardens, mini golf course, an all girls gun club.

He coined the phrase "The customer is always right" and was the first to promote Christmas sales with the phrase "Only......shopping days till Christmas"

 During this visit to London Selfridges Department store featured a 'No Noise campaign' in response to this hectic, noisy, busy lifestyle that is London, featuring a modern version of Mr Selfidge's original  'Silence Room'

The campaign had three parts: The Silence Room

                                             Headspace Pods

                                           The Quiet Shop

  

 Selfridges commissioned Light show artist Katie Paterson to design four installations to feature in the window displays for the No Noise campaign.

Image from Google search

 

 The Silence room was of most interest to me, a space where in the middle of noisy chaotic London you could go to to take a time out and unwind.

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The concept of this silence room was great although the same cant be said for the installation.

The Interior was minimalist with Japanese style mats on low benches surrounding the room and padded material wall paneling which all worked nicely the room was relaxing the only problem was the noise!!!

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 My acoustics engineer friend told me the key to containing noise is a sealed space, this didn't even have a suspended ceiling it was an open enclosure so there was no noise barrier at all.  It was located next to what sounded like a coffee shop as I could hear china clinking, general store noise and the sound of the tube.

You are given ear plugs as you enter but they did not work for me.

  

I did read that it wasn't intended to be completely silent but by calling it the silence room instantly gives the impression it will be.

Even though it wasn't quiet it was still a break away from the chaos outside and after about ten minutes I did feel pretty relaxed and enjoyed the escape. There was a girl asleep, who came to the Silence Room for a nap every day on her lunch break.

The Quiet Shop

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I liked the idea of the quiet shop, but a lot of the brands that removed their names from their products were so well known the product didn't need the name to be branded.  It also created a new brand of collectable non branded items.

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