I Shop, Therefore I Am - Mary Portas

Description

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.

Review

I loved Shop Girl and was really looking forward to reading this next installment. It did not disappoint.

For some this will be a history book, as it charts Mary's journey through her time at Harvey Nichols in the 1990s. For me it was a reminiscence, and I enjoyed remembering all the trends and new developments that now are enshrined in our culture.

The part I found most interesting was the behind the scenes goings at Harvey Nichols with the newly launched Ab Fab. I didn't realise that before Ab Fab we never said Harvey Nicks - or that it was such a positive impact on the shop and career of Mary.

There were so many colourful and candid anecdotes involving members of named staff, that I wondered if their names  had been changed? It was very entertaining, but at the same time the toil that Mary and her team went through was also apparent. So much social history is also in the book, from the lack of women on the Board of Directors at HN and the attitude to maternity leave. 

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to NetGalley for the ARC to review.