London’s Lost Department Stores

Title Synopsis:

Best-selling social historian Tessa Boase takes us behind the scenes of London’s lost department stores, bringing back to life a vanished era of confidence and style. 

Today’s consumer has little idea of the sheer dazzle of these ‘Halls of Temptation’ during the golden age of shopping – of their sheer theatrical spectacle, the overwhelming assault on the senses, the astonishing architectural élan. From the fabulous Art Deco of Derry & Toms, to the Moderne lines of Simpsons Piccadilly, department stores led the way in fashion and design. As new social hubs for the independent Victorian woman, they engineered social progress. They became legendary for their publicity stunts, their Christmas shop windows, their exotic pet departments, their furs: as places where you could buy anything.

Full of immersive period detail and vivid human anecdote, London’s Lost Department Stores unpacks the secret stories behind fifty once-great stores.

Author Bio:

Tessa Boase is a British freelance journalist, author, lecturer and campaigner with an interest in uncovering the stories of invisible women from the 19th and early 20th-centuries, revealing how they drove industry, propped up society and influenced politics. She’s the author of three books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House (2014); Etta Lemon: The Woman Who Saved the Birds (2018), and London’s Lost Department Stores: A Vanished World of Dazzle and Dreams (2022).

Copyright: Tessa Boase

Running Time: 05:20:00

ISBN: 9781959162186

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