A MAGNET FOR STYLE

Until a few years ago, understatement was the hallmark of Bond Street in London’s Mayfair. This corner of central London, by the East edge of Hyde Park, boasts the highest concentration of shops holding Royal Warrants (issued to suppliers of goods or services to the royal family); “no splash; no glitter” was how Virginia Woolf described Bond Street’s shops in Mrs Dalloway. It all began to change in 2010 when Louis Vuitton moved to Bond Street. Numerous international fashion houses have planted their flags in Mayfair since then. According to the New West End Company, which represents 600 retailers in the area, this square mile now has the highest proportion of ‘haute couture’ stores in the world.

As Mayfair has become a magnet for stylish British (some say ‘footballers and their friends’) and the world’s wealthiest tourists, splash and glitter has become more the rule than the exception. Chanel’s Bond Street boutique features a strand of ‘pearls’ three stories long. Belstaff – whose biker jackets are worn by Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp – closed down Bond Street for a motorbike parade to mark the opening of its Mayfair superstore. Alexander McQueen’s shop is decorated with elaborate plaster panels incorporating seashells, wings and skulls, the house motif. It all makes for great shopping ‘theatre’. The venerable jeweller, Asprey’s, on Bond Street since 1847, survives as a reminder of what Bond Street used to be.

Bespoke

Tradition lives, for the moment, on nearby Savile Row – the very name of which is synonymous with the best in British tailoring. A number of bespoke tailors have shops on this street; a hand-tailored madeto- measure – bespoke – suit takes two to three months to make, requires 50 hours of hand work and several fittings, costs around £3,000 but is typically worn for decades. A few steps away on Old Burlington street, near enough to make Savile Row merchants fall on their shears, is trendy Abercrombie and Fitch. Their bid to open a children’s shop at No 30 Savile Row faced serious opposition and though they won, they were prohibited from staging one of their signature launch parties.

Fitting in less controversially is Dover Street Market a few blocks from Bond Street, part department store, part museum, part ‘happening’, it offers four floors of fashion for men and women plus a tranquil coffee shop on the top floor. The creation of Rei Kawakubo, the Dover Street Market showcases her fashions – Comme des Garcons – and those of likeminded designers.