Oxford St renaissance that's left experts lost for words

Less than a year after it was branded a national embarrassment, Britain’s premier shopping destination will be transformed in £1bn boom

- Jonathan Prynn

A £1 BILLION investment boom is set to transform Oxford Street’s fortunes and restore it to its former glory as Europe’s premier shopping destination after the years of candy store blight.

Global brands are now scrambling to secure space along the West End’s 1.2 mile canyon of consumerism after a remarkable turnaround since the end of the pandemic. It comes less than a year after one retail boss branded Oxford Street a “national embarrassment” because of the large number of empty premises and units occupied by US-style sweetshops, tatty souvenir and luggage stores, and unofficial Harry Potter merchandise outlets.

The revival is being led by the restoration of two of the ugliest scars on Oxford Street: the empty former Debenhams and House of Fraser department stores, which were boarded up for months after the stores shut. Both are now in the throes of huge building works by new owners costing a combined £330 million that will turn them into modern office buildings with shops facing onto the street. Well known brands that have taken space on Oxford Street include HMV, which has returned to its former site at No 363 near Bond Street Tube, Kurt Geiger, which launched a flagship at No 272 to 274 in October, the French football club Paris Saint-Germain, now installed at No 192, and the US National Basketball Association, which launched its three-level mega-store last month.

In another telling sign of the times, fashion retailer Abercrombie & Fitch is debuting on Oxford Street next year with a two-floor outlet after shutting its former flagship on Regent Street, a location more often associated with "near luxury" brands rather than traditionally "mid-market" Oxford Street.