London’s sumptuous Victorian and Edwardian department stores changed the capital – and changed its women. Shoppers of every rank were lavishly wooed, seduced and often undone by the temptations laid out before them in these new ‘cathedrals of desire’. But as consumerism reached ever more frenzied levels, there was a more personal price to pay.

 This varied and fascinating day brings to life the untold stories behind objects, institutions and ‘invisible’ people of the late 19th and early 20th-Centuries and will take an in-depth look at:

1: The Victorian ‘big store’ and the rise of consumerism.

2: The cautionary tale of Heather Firbank; the Edwardian shopaholic whose entire couture wardrobe ended up in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
3: Art Deco and the department store; from roof gardens to curved glass walls, Coronation fever to marketing stunts.

Tessa Boase

Tessa Boase is a freelance lecturer for The Arts Society along with other organisations such as the V&A, English Heritage and the National Trust. She’s the author of two books of social history: The Housekeeper’s Tale – The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House, and Mrs Pankhurst’s Purple Feather – Fashion, Fury and Feminism, Women’s Fight for Change. Her interest lies in uncovering stories of invisible women of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, revealing how they drove industry, propped up high society and manipulated politics. Tessa has an MA in English Literature from Oxford University, a diploma in Art History from the British Institute of Florence, and has enjoyed a long career in journalism for national newspapers and magazines.