Harrods

51°29′58.51″N 00°09′48.66″W

Harrods

File:Logo harrods.gif
Company type	Private
Industry	Retail
Genre	Department Store
Founded	1834
Founder	Charles Henry Harrod
Headquarters	London , England
Products	Quality/Lifestyle
Owner	Mohamed al-Fayed
Number of employees	5000+
Parent	Harrods
Website	www.harrods.com

Harrods is a department store on Brompton Road in Knightsbridge, London, England. The Harrods brand also applies to other enterprises undertaken by the Harrods group of companies including Harrods Bank, Harrods Estates, Harrods Casino, Harrods Aviation, and Air Harrods.

The store occupies a 4.5-acre site and has over one million square feet of selling space in over 330 departments. This makes Harrods one of the largest department stores in the world.

The Harrods motto is Omnia Omnibus Ubique —- All Things for All People, Everywhere. Several of its departments, including the seasonal Christmas department and the Food Hall are world famous. The nearest tube station to the store is Knightsbridge. An entrance to the station is positioned adjacent to the store.

History

Fashion plate of 1909 shows Londoners walking in front of Harrods

Harrods was established in 1834 in London’s East End, when founder Charles Henry Harrod set up a wholesale grocery in Stepney, with a special interest in tea. In 1849, to escape the filth of the inner city and to capitalise on trade to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in nearby Hyde Park, Harrod took over a small shop in the district of Knightsbridge, on the site of the current store. Beginning in a single room employing two assistants and a messenger boy, Harrod’s son Charles Digby Harrod built the business into a thriving retail operation selling medicines, perfumes, stationery, fruit, and vegetables. Harrods rapidly expanded, acquired the adjoining buildings, and employed one hundred people by 1880.

However, the store’s booming fortunes were reversed in early December 1883, when it burnt to the ground. Remarkably, in view of this calamity, Charles Harrod fulfilled all of his commitments to his customers to make Christmas deliveries that year — and made a record profit in the process. In short order, a new building was raised on the same site, and soon Harrods extended credit for the first time to its best customers, among them Oscar Wilde, legendary actresses Lilly Langtry and Ellen Terry, Noël Coward, Sigmund Freud, A. A. Milne, and many members of the British royal family.

In 1898, Harrods installed what is claimed to be the world's first moving staircase (escalator); nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal'.

Significant events in Harrods history

• 1834: Charles Henry Harrod (1799-1885) founds a wholesale grocery in Stepney, East London
• 1849: Harrods moves to the Knightsbridge area of London, near Hyde Park
• 1861: Harrods undergoes a transformation when it was taken over by Harrod's son, Charles Digby Harrod (1841-1905)
• 1883: On December 6, fire guts the shop buildings, giving the family the opportunity to rebuild on a grander scale
• 1889: Andrew Mayo Junior retires, and Harrods shares are floated on the London Stock Exchange under the name Harrod's Stores Limited
• 1905: Begun in 1894, the present building is completed to the design of architect Charles William Stephens.
• 1912: Harrods opens its first and only foreign branch in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It became independent of Harrods in the late 1940s but still traded under the Harrods name.
• 1914: Harrods purchases the Regent Street department store Dickins & Jones.
• 1919: Harrods purchases the Manchester department store, Kendals; It took on the Harrods name for a short time in the 1920s, but the name was changed back to Kendals following protests from staff and customers.
• 1959: The British department store holding company, House of Fraser, buys Harrods.
• 1983: A high-profile Provisional IRA bomb outside the Knightsbridge store kills six people.
• 1985: The al-Fayed brothers buy the store for £615 million.
• 1994: The relationship between House of Fraser and Harrods is severed. Harrods remains under the ownership of the Al-Fayed family, and House of Fraser is floated on the stock exchange.
• 1997: The British court issues an injunction to restrain the Buenos Aires Harrods store from trading under the Harrods name.
• 2006: The Harrods "102" store opens opposite the main store on Brompton Road; it features concessions like Krispy Kreme and Yo! Sushi, as well as florists, a herbalist, a masseur, and an oxygen spa.
• 2006: Omar Al-Fayed, Mohamed's youngest son, joins the Harrods board.

Products and services

The store's 330 departments offer a wide range of products and services. Products on offer include clothing for every sort of customer (women, men, children, and infants), electronics, jewellery, sporting gear, bridal trousseau, pet accessories, toys, food and drink, health and beauty items, packaged gifts, stationery, housewares, home appliances, furniture, and much more.

File:Harrods at Night 2005 Christmas.jpg

Harrods at Christmas

A representative sample of store services includes 28 restaurants, serving everything from high tea to tapas to pub food to haute cuisine; a personal shopping-assistance programme known as "By Appointment"; a watch repair service; a tailor; a dispensing pharmacy; a beauty spa and salon; a barbers shop; Harrods Financial Services; Harrods Bank; private events planning and catering; food delivery; a wine steward; bespoke (customised) "picnic" hampers and gift boxes; bespoke cakes; and bespoke fragrance formulations.

Up to 300,000 customers visit the store on peak days. More than five thousand staff from over fifty different countries work at Harrods. A fleet of fifty delivery vehicles make up to 225,000 deliveries every year. Approximately 11,500 energy-efficient light bulbs turn Harrods into a beacon of light each night.

There are also a number of concessions within the store such as Turnbull & Asser, HMV, Waterstones, Krispy Kreme and David Clulow Opticians.

Royal warrants

The opulent Egyptian-style clothing department at Harrods, London

Harrods was the holder of royal warrants from:

• Queen Elizabeth II for Provisions and Household Goods
• The Duke of Edinburgh as Outfitters
• The Prince of Wales as Outfitters and Saddlers
• The Queen Mother, now deceased, for China and Glass

Harrods had held The Duke of Edinburgh's warrant since 1956, but it was rescinded by Prince Philip on 21 December 2001 because of a "significant decline in the trading relationship" between the duke and the store.

Al-Fayed then pre-emptively removed all the royal coats of arms that had been prominently displayed by the business, even though other warrants were yet to expire or be withdrawn. None of the royal grantors of warrants had spent any money at Harrods since 1997.

Egyptian Cobra

On September 10, 2007, Harrods hired a live Egyptian cobra to protect the shoe counter, guarding a £62,000 (120,000 dollar) pair of haute couture ruby-sapphire-and diamond-encrusted sandals launched by designer Rene Caovilla.

Further reading

• Chris Bennett and Colin Cameron (2000-02-07). Behind the Scenes at Harrods. Andre Deutsch. ISBN 0-233-99617-6. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
• Tim Dale (November 1986). Harrods: The Store and the Legend. Pan. ISBN 0-330-29800-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: year (link)

References

Notes:

References:

• Guinness World Records 2007, published by Guinness (August 8, 2006), ISBN 978-1904994121

External links

• Harrods website
• Harrods Estates
• Harrods Aviation
• Harrods VIDEO on www.youtube.com
• Harrods store elevation
• Mohamed al-Fayed interview Harrods Owner