Department stores still matter – especially when they champion emerging brands
When my grandmother left the UK on a ship bound for Australia after the Second World War, she took with her a rose-tinted vision of her birth country that revolved around Cornishware, wisteria in bloom and afternoons browsing the Liberty haberdashery. Since moving to London, I have found that this nostalgic perception of the UK largely fails to hold up. The Liberty department store, however, remains a beacon of considered retail in the city’s West End, where international conglomerates otherwise dominate.
There’s a time and a place for mass-market retail and denying this often sounds out of touch. Department stores have an important role to play when it comes to championing smaller, high-quality brands that might not be able to cut through the noise. I was at Liberty yesterday morning to preview a new atrium installation that celebrates a range from To My Ships, the personal-care brand founded by ex-Aesop entrepreneur Daniel Bense. Launched in September 2024, the brand is a newcomer to the beauty market but its deodorants, soaps and perfumes are a cut above anything that I have tested in recent years. The opportunity to take centre stage in one of London’s most storied department stores will help the company increase visibility and convince customers to take a punt after thorough in-person sniffing and swatching.
At their best, department stores such as Paris’s Le Bon Marché and Tokyo’s Isetan are tastemakers. When I spoke to Liberty employees over coffee, the process of vetting new products – from beauty to leather goods – often came up as the most rewarding part of their jobs. Before the doors swung open at 10.00, a team of shop-floor workers gathered in the haberdashery for a speedy morning run-through about available stock. It was a welcome reminder that good bricks-and-mortar retail depends on knowledgeable staff who take care of customers by curating offerings and putting novelty on show. London might not always live up to my grandmother’s descriptions – except during the two weeks of summer – but there’s always Liberty.
Charlton is Monocle’s associate editor of design and fashion. For more opinion, analysis and insight, subscribe to Monocle today.
For more about the power of department stores, read about their golden age in the US here.
