National Department Store Day

 National Department Store Day.

After a year of often terrifying stillness it's nice to know that we can pay a visit to our local or, in the case of London, the metropolitan department stores. Now though, there is an altogether rosier complexion to Britain's high streets, a vibrancy born perhaps of relief. So we'll dig out our shopping bags, rummage around for our credit cards or simply produce hefty wads of cash for a day of blatant retail therapy. What could be more relaxing on a Saturday afternoon. 

Yes folks today is National Department Store Day. Now that must have come as a surprise to you. You really hadn't been expecting that one. It is a day that proudly celebrates commercialism, the seasonal sales and vast quantities of merchandise, all desirable looking products beautifully displayed before our eyes. But off you go. It's time to buy, buy and buy as if it was going out of fashion. You know what you want and you'll grab it while it's still available 

Catch a Tube train to the West End of London where you'll now find a now thriving and lucrative assortment of essential home necessities. Don't forget the cut price decanters, crockery and cutlery by the lorryload, massive racks of shirts, jackets, ties, shoes, appealing furniture, chaise longue from Harrods or Dickens and Jones, food sections, electronic and electrical appliances and a bewildering array of souvenirs and ornaments, a world of constant transactions and pretty shop windows with a whole variety of everything.

But the very presence of a high street department store conjures up immediate memories of Christmas from years and years gone by. During the yearly festive stampede towards the shops, London suddenly comes to colourful life. Across the whole of the West End conurbation, there is something magical and exciting about those final few weeks leading up to Christmas that truly illustrates the importance of the department store.

You recently stumbled on an online photo of either Regent or Oxford Street decorated with mock chandeliers strung across the entirety of the street, a scene dripping with sentimentality and glamour. In the following years the Christmas decorations took on an altogether more traditional look. There were lanterns, mini Christmas trees, cute lighting bulbs and angels quite possibly playing harps. The department store comes into its own. 

The likes of John Lewis, Selfridges, Marks and Spencer have firmly secured their place in the hearts of millions and millions of tourists, wandering window shoppers and people who take enormous pleasure in browsing, searching, rummaging again and shuffling through rails of clothes for what probably seems an interminable length of time. There is something about a department store customer that leads you to believe that the public are determined to find that elusive bargain and will stop at nothing to snap it up. 

West End shoppers are very selective and discerning in their choices of products and by Christmas Eve, they'll know exactly what they want and will not be disappointed. But will everything be priced at an astronomically high price remaining well out of our reach or will they simply splash the cash because they can't wait anymore? Shortly the musical cash tills will be singing and enormous brand bags will be lugging out 84 inch Plasma TVs that invariably stretch out  across an entire wall rather like a cinema screen. 

Perhaps the saddest casualty of the coronavirus lockdown was the demise of |Debenhams. For decades Debenhams represented quality, value for money and a rewarding day spent in a palatial looking shop that somehow seemed a permanent fixture. Then the global virus intervened and everything hit the buffers. Debenhams spent one agonising year as an empty shell, closed for goodness knows how long and privately fearing the worst eventually. By the beginning of the year Debenhams were struggling desperately before the ceiling caved in and Debenhams had to close its doors with little in the way of any revenue and nobody to bail them out of a hole. The shutters went up and that was it. 

So overnight the new kids on the block such as Primark, Next, Wilko's, Sports Direct and a whole host of small fashion shops were sprouting up everywhere. The cheap goods made for excellent investments and on July 19 this year, those ailing department stores shouted it from the highest rooftops. Hooray! It was time to welcome back their loyal customers back into their shopping aisles.

Now would be the time for the girls on the ground floor to stand expectantly by their perfume counters with hundreds of fragrant smells to dab delicately onto the wrists of countless women. Then there were escalators on at least two more heaving floors of shirts, skirts, trousers, scarves, garden chairs, kitchen fittings, bathroom accoutrements and an abundance of paraphernalia and bric a bracs, ephemera, children's toys and games, carpets and laminate flooring. 

And then there's the New Year's Eve camping site outside all of those blue riband department stores as millions of shoppers huddle together outside their targeted shops. Suitably equipped with Thermos flask, thick gloves to protect them from the freezing cold and blankets galore, the great British public await permission to storm the barricades, barging each other hilariously out of the way and showing no mercy whatsoever. At moments it looks absolutely terrifying because you can hardly believe that anybody would bust a gut just to ensure their place at the head of the queue. 

So Ladies and Gentlemen it's time to exercise  your purses and just spend the money you'd been longing to do so for ages. At the moment your impression is that the whole of the global population may not be as keen as they might have been to indulge in impressive spending sprees. But things will return to where they were before of that there can be no doubt. A Britain that will now find themselves in wholesale recovery will re-discover a voracious appetite to spend and spend and spend. 

Across the Atlantic, the instantly recognisable Macey's and Walmart will be competing against each other to tempt back their regular customers. New York at Christmas is often the perfect opportunity for children and families to race into Bloomingdales, drink their mulled wine and carry boxes and boxes of yet more festive stuff. They'll turn up in Santa's grotto dressed in appropriate red or traipse through thick acres of snow because New York always seem to be engulfed in it at Christmas.

So today is National Department Store day. Nobody knows why but it just is. You'd have to ask the inventor of this concept. Perhaps they felt that with the imminent arrival of Christmas  the middle of October seemed to be as good a time as any to make the announcement. Besides Halloween is a fortnight away and that's followed by Guy Fawkes firework night. Another year has flown by so rapidly that you half expect to see the prominent sales of Easter eggs in the middle of November. The department store, such an integral feature of the high street, is the social meeting place where we all feel united in our quest for that vital acquisition, that striking piece of ceramic for the mantelpiece, that shovel or hoe for the shed or just something for the hallway. Oh how we cherish our department stores.