Journey to the Stars

Selfridges reaches for the stars with a mystical Christmas.

The Luxonomist. 29/10/2015

The world famous store’s festive theme this year is Journey to the Stars. Using the symbolic Christmas star as initial inspiration, Selfridges quickly settled on constellation and astrology as the main creative driver to run throughout the store. The stars of the London store’s window displays are 12 windows on Oxford Street which feature the 12 signs of the zodiac. Presented in a highly stylised way each window references the relevant planets influencing the zodiac signs.

A passer by walks past the window depicting Aquarius. (Photo Matt Writtle 2015)

Selfridges’ Journey to the Stars scheme was over a year in development, with the London window displays alone taking over 500 people to set up and the in-store decorations over 30,000 hours to install. The London store’s largest window is triple-sided, at the corner of Oxford Street and Orchard Street, and showcases a giant, fully rotating orrery of the solar system made to scale with a little help from Greenwich Observatory. It is believed to be one of the largest ever made.

A creative team member puts the finish touches to the window depicting Cancer. (Photo: Matt Writtle)

Journey to the Stars, which runs until 24 December, features online at Selfridges.com and across all Selfridges stores. From window displays, in-store decorations and special customer experiences, including the opening of a psychic and mystical adult grotto called the Astrolounge, on the lower ground floor of the London store. Psychic readings, a psychic school, mystic workshops, birth chart tee-shirts, and much more mystic is on offer from the Astrolounge whereas hundreds of exclusive zodiac and constellation-themed products are available online and in-store.

A creative team member puts the finish touches to the window depicting Aries. (Photo: Matt Writtle)

Above all, Christmas this year more than any other year is all about personalisation – whether through mystical gifts or Selfridges extraordinary product offer across all its departments from fashion to food. From the world exclusive personalised Mini Moet, or the personalised Nutella, to personalised gift wrapping paper or bespoke scent collections by Margate-based fragrance experts Haeckel’s, there are perfect and unique gifts at every price and for everyone.