A GUARDIAN 'BEST BOOK TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN 2025' It's the 1990s: Britpop is dominating the
charts Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell stare out from the cover of every glossy magazine and
British fashion is ripe for reinvention. Leading the charge is a twenty-something Mary Portas
who has been brought in to revitalise the department store Harvey Nichols at the time more
likely to be associated with dowagers than daring designers. With department stores in
decline and an alpha male leadership team watching closely the pressure is immense: make it
profitable and make it relevant. Mary steps into a world she doesn't fully understand - and at
first it shows. But what seems like vulnerability quickly reveals itself as vision. She
doesn't rely on fitting in she leans into instinct takes bold creative risks and reimagines
what luxury could be. By the millennium the store would be renowned for its outrageous
headline-grabbing traffic-stopping window displays patronage by style icon Lady Di and
Bolly-swigging duo Patsy and Edina of the iconic sitcom Ab Fab - no longer fusty old Harvey
Nichols but Harvey Nicks daaarling! I Shop Therefore I Am is the story of how she did it.
Mary takes us behind the shop window - to the people who kept the show on the road and the
early lessons that shaped her career. Told with her trademark wit grit and candour readers
will see first-hand how armed only with the blank canvas of a shop window and her own
creativity Mary created an era-defining global brand destination.
