last london post, i swear

a list of things about which to blog has been accumulating over the last two weeks, but i have not yet written my final post about london, so i can't attack it yet. in an effort to culminate the london blogging & begin discussing other things, this is a brief look at the stark differences between a two staples of london shopping that are without american equal.

1) topshop
according to wikipedia, topshop's oxford street store is the largest fashion retail store in the world. i may be reading the wiki wrong, but i certainly don't find it hard to believe. i imagine the only competitors are places like harrods, bloomingdales, & saks, but perhaps these don't qualify as "fashion stores" because they sell such a wide variety of consumer goods & market themselves as purveyors of everything, not just high-end fashion. even if topshop on oxford street isn't the largest fashion store in the world, it is certainly singular in its gargantuan frenzy-generating stock of desirable, fair-priced clothing for both men & women. it isn't a self-sustained business - topshop is a member of Arcadia Group Limited along with other london high street clothing stores - but it is definitely a giant walking among mortals. what strikes me as odd is that there is no store comparable to topshop anywhere in the U.S. & arguably, by that token, in the world. granted its popularity has only peaked in the last 15 years, no one store operates as a fashion retailer & markets to an impossibly huge audience of female (& male) shoppers, from the extremely trendy to very reserved & literally everyone in between. why no store here can accomplish such a thing is beyond me - the model certainly presents itself as successful, seeing as topshop at oxford circus is immeasurably busy at any given time. stores here have yet to match the one-stop-shopping that topshop (especially topshop on oxford street) has created, & as always american stores struggle to balance the inexpensive with the reasonably priced, something that topshop has down to a science as they supply "boutique" and vintage-inspired brands with steeper tags alongside the affordable. topshop has made its way to america but the new york flagship store is almost incomparable - because of its distance from london & its american coinage, the store is both expensive & less well stocked than that of oxford street. in conclusion: take a hint, american retailers!


2) department store food halls
defined by class & rectangular departmentalized rooms with low ceilings, the pillars of department store shopping that stand in london - namely harrods, selfridges, harvey nichols, john lewis, house of fraser, & debenhams - are historic & iconic, but someone must have left a few pages of the "how to create a successful department store" behind when they came to the U.S. one unique & completely luxurious element of the london department store is the food hall, brimming with stands of packaged & prepared foods of various ethnic origins &, naturally, layers of chocolates & pastries. why do the new york department store staples lack these gorgeous arrays of food? perhaps it is because by the early 1900s, when departments stores has truly taken off in both countries, the concept of the department store was the inspiration, & not a precise model, thus departmentalizations became unique in each country. what is interesting is that target & walmart are technically (discount) departments stores & they do have departments in which they sell food, even prepared foods in some cases. also noteworthy: technically marks & spencer isn't a department store because not every department has its own register & it therefore does not fit the british definition of "department store"; there are several at the front of the store @ which you can purchase any department's goods.