We will not be deprived of our Liberty

More of an Aladdin’s cave than a department store, Liberty feels as fresh today as it did 150 years ago. Gavin Plumley uncovers the secrets of England's favourite emporium

- Gavin Plumley

REGENT STREET is a dazzling thoroughfare, a cinematic backlot of Imperialist Baroque. Its sweeping lines and endless porticos gleam in the spring sunlight—but, for all the splendour, the street is not entirely how I remember it from my childhood. Many established names have gone: Austin Reed, Dickins & Jones, even the British Airways booking office. Nonetheless, an unswervingly original presence remains amid today’s replacement, carbon-copy brands: the bastion of English style that is Liberty.

Exactly 150 years ago tomorrow (May 15, 1875), a Chesham-born draper’s son, Arthur Lasenby Liberty, immortalised his surname by taking the lease on No 218a Regent Street. Initially called East India House, it was to provide a singular shopping experience, more like an Aladdin's cave than a department store—building on his knowledge of nearby rivals, Liberty favoured Eastern curios and silks.

His initial collection had such immediate appeal that he was able to pay back the loan in a mere 18 months and acquire the rest of the premises. Renamed Liberty & Co, a legend was born.

Blossoming during the age of William Morris's most florid patterns, the provocative nocturnes of regular client James McNeill Whistler and Gilbert and Sullivan's hit shows, Liberty similarly came to epitomise 19th-century London chic—and it would continue to do so long into the 20th century, as the emporium outgrew its premises. Consequently, a much grander building was unveiled among Regent Street’s symmetrical façades; today, only brass Shinto deities above the door recall its initial purpose. Around the corner, however, dominating Great Marlborough Street, is a structure still synonymous with Liberty's vision: the store’s fairy-tale, mock-Tudor headquarters of 1924, created by the same architectural firm of E. T. and E. S. Hall.