London’s grandest street for shopping has very little to do with the UK and a lot in common with New York’s finest, Fifth Avenue.
It used to be the case that if you wanted to see novelty in retail you boarded a plane and made the trip to New York City, tramped up and down Fifth Avenue and, at a push, parts of Madison.
If you were trendy, you might then head down to SoHo to get a snapshot of alternative American retail, and then you’d head back to JFK. US retail sorted. Job done!
Spoilt for choice
Nothing much has changed in terms of the route-map that those visiting the Big Apple are likely to take and there will always be something that’s worth looking at (and now Brooklyn’s Williamsburg is part of the itinerary as well).
Yet there is much to be said for heading out of town when in the US for no better reason than that a lot of what is available in Fifth Avenue is replicated on Regent Street.
“Increasingly homegrown retailers are more or less disappearing from Regent Street”
Not for nothing have I previously named this part of London’s West End “Little America”. And as Polo Ralph Lauren readies itself for the opening of a massive store on the thoroughfare and accessories purveyor Coach prepares to move to bigger premises, knowing your own backyard is more important than ever.
It’s also a fact that increasingly homegrown retailers are more or less disappearing from Regent Street.
Way back in the last decade, there was a department store called Dickens & Jones that traded in this location and the presence of Liberty’s extended around the corner from Great Marlborough Street, giving it a storefront just along the way from this.
International shopping within reach
Regent Street was an upmarket British institution but wasn’t actually that good, even if the buildings were very grand. Now it’s Fifth Avenue-lite, inasmuch as it is much shorter and has relatively little to do with what happens across the broader canvas that is UK retail.
The same might be said of Oxford Street, except that what can be seen along its golden mile are, for the most part, bigger and better versions of the stores found in high streets around the country.
“Regent Street was an upmarket British institution but wasn’t actually that good, even if the buildings were very grand. Now it’s Fifth Avenue Lite”
Not so Regent Street, which for a fair number of its occupants seems to be where they make UK landfall and then stop.
Therefore, the next time that somebody suggests looking at the competition on Fifth, politely suggest a trip to the King of Prussia mall, Chicago, Miami or sundry others – you are more likely to get the required sense of difference by so doing.
No comments yet