This week brings with it the occasion for Department Stores worldwide to turn Selfridges yellow with envy. The regal London store - which protrudes, in its grandly pillared livery and revolving door finery onto Oxford Street – has been crowned the World’s Best Department store. For more than a century, the name has been synonymous with the World’s finest clothing, conjuring glittering images of high-end labels, garnished with a sprinkle of that trademark Selfridges magic. It’s hard to define, is it the setting? The atmosphere? The sheer size? Whatever it is, and I suspect it is a combination of all of those elements, there is something about Selfridges which just makes it sparkle, an indefinable quality that allows you to believe that all things become infinitely better when they come in a yellow bag.

IGDS (that is the Intercontinental Group of Department Stores) seems to agree with the sentiment, championing Selfridges as the World’s Number one based upon its ‘delivery of an outstanding store experience’ amongst many other factors. This one, however, seems to be the catch. It is this elusive quality, the in-store experience, that keeps central London afloat on a sea of yellow shopping bags. For everything feels that touch more special inside the grandiose setting of Selfridges, and that is what marks it out as different, as a vast playground for the fashion conscious it is a steadfastly glamorous solution to any of your shopping needs.

Ben Schofield