Liberty has to be the prettiest store in London. The first time you turn off Regent Street and see that mad Tudor frontage, it’s almost impossible not to laugh out loud. In the midst of all the stately Georgian architecture in this part of central London, Liberty looks like a joke played on the city by the Disney Corporation.
In some ways it is, except the joker wasn’t Walt but a chap called Arthur Lasenby Liberty, who had the store built in 1924. So, not Tudor at all! It was created using the timbers of two ships, the HMS Impregnable and the HMS Hindustan, and the length of the Great Marlborough Street frontage is apparently the same as that of the Hindustan.
Inside, the store is even more impressive. Arthur Liberty wanted to have his customers feel as if they were walking round their own homes (this tells you something about the kind of customers he had), so the store was arranged as small rooms round three galleried lightwells. The place gleams with carved panelling; it’s a bit like walking round a stately home where you’re actually allowed to pick up the exhibits…
For years, the fragrance department at Henri Bendel was a tempting but awkwardly placed niche at the rear of the crowded main floor. Now it occupies a prime spot on the second level: ascend the curving staircase, and you’ll find its expanded, highly browsable selection. The department is intimate enough to feel comfortable, but large enough to offer a rich variety, balancing classic houses Caron and Chanel, the established niche line L’Artisan Parfumeur (which occupies an entire in-house boutique at Bendel), and small, local company Aroma M Perfumes, to name just a few examples.
