Opinion: The West End’s swings and roundabouts

There is no such thing as a steady state. For a while, say the past couple of years, Regent Street has seen something of a decline as names such as Austin Reed, Banana Republic and French Connection decided that the game on that thoroughfare was up and closed shop.

Lately, however, this has changed, and the change has been very evident in the past few weeks.

Indeed within the past fortnight, two new fascias from H&M, Arket and Weekday, have made landfall on Regent Street – and just prior to this, sports shoe brand Asics opened its global flagship, three times larger than other branches, close to Oxford Circus.

Regent Street vs Oxford Street

Regent Street is in the ascendant once more and, in spite of what might appear to be an inclement economic backdrop, many of retailing’s biggest names still choose to pay the price and set up shop here.

For tourists and locals alike this can only be good news – Regent Street is pretty much the must-visit location if you are interested in shopping, and the same should be true of Oxford Street.

“Just across the street from this there is American Candy, which gives Giftland a run for its money in the ‘let’s spoil Oxford Street’ stakes”

Except that Oxford Street is also undergoing something of a transformation at the moment. It’s just over a year since BHS closed its doors on this one for the last time, and we waited a while for something to happen.

Then earlier this year news broke that Polish clothing retailer Reserved would open in the autumn. Now the wait is almost over and the theatre-like curtain that currently fills the windows is nothing if not arresting.

Equally arresting is the incredibly tacky Giftland that has been granted a, hopefully, temporary lease next door and which is filled with Royal memorabilia, ‘I ❤ London’ T-shirts and cheap luggage.

And just across the street from this there is American Candy, which gives Giftland a run for its money in the ‘let’s spoil Oxford Street’ stakes.

Streets apart

The truth of the matter is that as the Regent Street door opens wide once more, things on Oxford Street are going in the opposite direction.

Walk east from Oxford Circus and matters appear to be going backwards after what seemed for a time to be a mild renaissance with the success of Primark and another chichi Zara outpost, as well as the Dixons ‘3-in-1’ techno palace.

This is not to say that things will stay this way – they won’t. It’s just that we are seeing one of the fairly regular fluctuations in the fortunes of these two rival and complementary shopping streets.

For the moment, at least, the wind is set fair on Regent Street, while Oxford Street seems becalmed in the doldrums.