Browns is a slightly difficult enterprise to describe. It’s kind of a stiff-upper-lip British version of Colette in Paris; self-consciously serious about high-end fashion — clothes, hats, shoes, bags, fragrance. Browns carries lots of established names as well as hot-stuff newbies, but it offers only selected items from those designers, and changes direction fairly often. It’s the place where future creative superstars get discovered.
Browns’ principal base is in South Molton Street, off Oxford Street, but even here you’re thrown into artful confusion. There’s a main store, which consists of several terraced buildings linked together in a labyrinth of passageways. Across from here, there’s a shop called ‘Browns Focus’, which offers cutting edge clothes ‘for the woman who likes to dress with attitude’. Further down South Molton Street, there’s ‘Browns Labels for Less’, which is essentially the outlet store. Elsewhere in London, there’s Browns Bride and Browns Shoes.
Browns is a useful source of niche fragrance…