Oxford Street in central London is one of the busiest shopping thoroughfares among all Europe’s capital cities. Towards the east it leads to the moneymaking City of London. Westwards lies the glorious open spaces of Hyde Park, famously referred to as the ‘lungs of London’. Just before you get to the park, another glorious experience has just arrived, and it is to be discovered inside Selfridges, the giant department store. It is called The Wonder Room.
But first a word or two about Selfridges. It was the creation of Harry Gordon Selfridge, born in Wisconsin 150 years ago next year. After learning his trade with Marshall Field, the major Chicago retailer, he crossed the Atlantic and raised £900,000 in the City of London in 1906. Three years later his store, with its massive columned frontage, was opened, complete with 130 different departments. In the first of many legendary window displays, he installed the monoplane in which Louis Blériot completed the first cross-Channel flight the same year. On the first floor, the first-ever demonstration of television was conducted by John Logie Baird in April 1925.
The Irish retailer Paul Kelly has worked for Galen Weston (the Canadian owner of Selfridges since 2003) for more than 20 years. He headed the team that has created The Wonder Room and which has just opened on the ground floor on the south-west corner of Selfridges, bordering Oxford Street. I think it is one of the most exciting retail areas in London. Highly artistic touches are everywhere to be seen. The white marble floors run all over the place, elegantly separating display stands, with gleaming chandeliers overhead. Old-fashioned? Not here, because the goods on show are so stunningly set out. And at the huge core of The Wonder Room are timepieces by the hundred.





Chief Executive Paul Kelly comments: “Telling time becomes an experience in The Wonder Room. The prestige and timeless elegance of a finely crafted watch is hard to resist. Let your wrists be adorned by the most respected watch brands in the world.” Europa Star readers will have to forgive him the use of the well-worn cliché “timeless elegance”, because in this case I unreservedly agree with it.
Within this magical space (which is a successor to the David Morris International Watch Room), can be found some products that were first introduced to the watch trade in Basel and Geneva last spring. A few examples: Breitling’s Bentley Flying B (if not already sold!), Cartier’s Balon Bleu (which the director of Cartier’s newly refurbished and reopened store in Bond Street tells me is selling very well indeed), Chopard’s latest Mille Miglia model (the GT XL Chrono) and its top-end Two-O-Ten XL, Corum’s new version of the Romulus, Doxa’s square Bauhaus-style Grafic, Hamilton’s ‘left-handed’ Khaki Tachymiler, Hermès’s limited edition Cape Cod Moon Phases, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s new Reverso Squadra range, three dainty ladies’ cocktail wristwatches which Longines have based on models from 1917 and 1918, Maurice Lacroix’s boastfully (yet justifiably) named Masterpiece Le Chronographe, the very snazy Jazz Dizzy Gillespie Limited Edition from Oris, Rado’s True White Pure Jubilé (which exactly matches the floors all around), and Tissot’s oh-so-clever T-Race Chronograph Valjoux Automatic.
And beyond the array of timepieces, lies further happiness. A wine bar, that features something of a world’s first, a ‘wine jukebox’. Upon payment it offers a choice of wines by the glass – from no less than 52 different producers. Time passes very agreeably in The Wonder Room.


Source: Europa Star October-November 2007 Magazine Issue