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Modernism/modernity 12.2 (2005) 311-328



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Crossing the Great Divides:

Selfridges, Modernity, and the Commodified Authentic

'Harsh criticism arrives from a Wakefield man every other day. He cuts our cartoon advertisements from the papers and underlines the letter press, sending a note always with the same wording, "What do you sell? What do you sell? Why don't you say what you sell in your advertisements?"'
Evening News, "Criticising Mr. Selfridge," 19091
Mr. Selfridge, however, in his gracefully worded advertisements, lays but little stress on the commercial side of his gigantic undertaking. We are to look upon Selfridges rather as a pleasant place for a quiet look round than as a mere store. We are to go there as connoisseurs contemplating a choice collection, not as seekers after bargains. Everything is to be done to make our visit pleasant for us, and should anybody desire to acquire any new possessions on a basis of payment, it is rumoured that even that will not be impossible in this remarkable establishment.
Bystander, "A Week of Shopping," 19092
What the public have yet to realize is that business is a science, or at its greatest an art. . . .Sheer commercialism, the desire to make profit and to accumulate money, may determine the organization of a business, but business [End Page 311] to-day has passed beyond that mere money-grubbing stage.
Times, Selfridges's Advertisement, "London's Greatest Store," 19093

The opening of Selfridges Department Store in London in 1909 marked a pivotal moment in British marketing. "London's Greatest Store" perfected the commercial selling of the non-commercial, paradoxically inscribing within its elegantly decorated interior a cultural location outside the marketplace. Visitors on the store's opening day found a luxurious, almost enchanted space, where soft lighting illuminated the vast array of goods from clothes to china to books, where price tags were absent or at least discreet, and where concealed string quartets provided a soothing musical accompaniment for the spectators. In this new commercial environment, the message was that even large-scale stores were free of mass market taint; amid the refined atmosphere the shoppers—or guests, as Selfridges called them—would find an abundance of authentic and exclusive objects, not to be confused with the mass produced goods available elsewhere. This extraordinary atmosphere marked a dramatic realignment of London's commercial energies, representing one of the first mass market campaigns to sell a disdain for the mass market. 4

Any half-awake twenty-first century cultural critic will be able to list the commercial tricks deployed on Selfridges' opening day: the selling of products as lifestyle, the lure of spectacle and visual intoxication, the fetishizing of the commodity, and so on. Indeed, as the first two contemporary reactions printed above suggest, even in 1909 the non-commercial aesthetic of Selfridges raised cynical eyebrows. "What do you sell?" writes the first indignant commentator. "Why don't you say what you sell in your advertisements?"—his query offering one of the earliest protests against the marketing of image and lifestyle over goods themselves. The more sophisticated irony of the Bystander writer reveals his careful understanding of the strategy; he lets his audience know that despite the "gracefully worded advertisements" implying that shoppers would be transformed into "connoisseurs contemplating a choice collection," acquiring new possessions will still be possible in this new establishment. He will not be taken in by the non-commercial appearance, he hints, or by any idea that this is somehow not a shop with profit as its central motive. And trained in skepticism as we are, readers then and now will not be fooled by the claims made by Selfridges in the third quotation; dress it up as you might, business is about profit, about money-grubbing, about accumulation. We won't believe the hype.

This article takes these critiques as a given. Incisive critical commentary on advertising and on marketing abounds, and exploring the false claims and schemes within a commercial culture is an essential and ongoing project.5 This critical approach...

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