Liberty is a well known store in Great Marlborough Street in central London, England at the heart of the West End shopping district. It was founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875 to sell ornaments, fabrics and miscellaneous art objects from Japan and the Far East. Liberty & Co. first catered for an eclectic mixture of popular styles, but then went on to develop a fundamentally different style closely linked to the aesthetic movement of the 1890s and Art Nouveau. The company became synonymous with this new style to the extent that in Italy, Art Nouveau became known as Stile Liberty after the London shop. Liberty still has a distinctive style and produces some of its own fabrics.
Its building fronts Great Marlborough Street and is one of the most prominent Tudor revival Arts and Crafts buildings in London. It is a Grade II* listed building. The timbers used in the construction of the building (built in 1924) were taken from two British naval ships, the HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan.[1] Liberty operated a second frontage in the adjoining Regent Street building, but this was closed in March 2006 reducing overall sales space by 20%.[2] These days the shop sells up to date fashions, cosmetics, accessories, gifts etc. in addition to its homewares and furniture. The shop is noted for not feeling like a typical large department store, as it is small and intimate with stairs and decorative elevators instead of escalators and is spread out around several wooden balconied, "mock-Tudor" style atriums with glass roofs over, which are decorated with thousands of tiny lights at Christmas. Since 1988, Liberty has had a subsidiary in Japan which sells Liberty branded products in leading Japanese shops. It also sells Liberty fabrics to international and local fashion brands with bases in Japan.
References
Alison Adburgham, Liberty's - A biography of a shop, George Allen and Unwin (1975)
