Half-Pipe Skates to Selfridges

Elena Bowes — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:03:09 +0000

At the moment, I am loving Selfridges. And not because of what’s in the store so much as what’s next door, namely England’s largest in-door skateboard park. As part of Selfridge’s cool Board Games campaign the department store has opened a specially-designed skateboard park with ramps, jumps and more in the Old Selfridges Hotel accessible via Orchard Street. And it’s all free- entry is free, equipment hire is free and even weekend lessons are free (one per person). You’ve got to love a store that does that.

I visited the pop-up park yesterday (closes April 19), and the all exposed-brickwork park was rocking. A skater told me that pros are interspersed amidst the amateurs.

“How can you tell which are the pro’s?” I asked.

“They’re the ones who are really good at skating,” he said.

And for those drawn to the free spirit attitude of skateboarding but not sure their bodies are up to the task, invest in the look at Selfridges which is selling limited edition designer decks.

Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto may never have been on a skateboard, but the septuagenarian designer is still a rebel at heart. He put an X-ray of his own skull on his exclusive Selfridges skateboard. I also like the skater-designed boards, specifically Benny Fairfax’s Palace Anguilla one. I liked it so much it’s hanging on my wall. Yamamoto’s board may be a limited edition, but his young-at-heart attitude, thankfully, is not.

April, 2014

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Urban Zombie

Elena Bowes — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:56:50 +0000

Take a trip back in time and experience the ad hoc, spirit of post-punk 1980’s through to materialistic, consumeristic, mass media now. The ICA has organised a bold, thought-provoking off-site experiment in the abandoned Selfridges Hotel (next to the department store on Orchard Street).

The show, or “experiment” as ICA Director Gregor Muir likes to call it, seeks to connect the dots between London’s vibrant and wide-ranging underground artistic past up through to the present day.

Rather than be totally nostalgic this “experiment” shows that some of what was relevant then still is now. Often, peering into these glass cases, its hard to tell the then from the now. Over fifty chronologically placed vitrines, video works and installations like these Urban Zombie mannequins spotlight London’s counterculture. Mudlarking, Madame JoJo’s, a young Boy George, YBA, Fashion East, Dalston, Alexander McQueen, Issie Blow, WAG, Princess Julia, St John Restaurant (who fed the starving artists), Giles Deacon, Zaha Hadid, Dover Street Market, Butt Magazine, David Adjaye are just a mere snippet of the dots in the vitrines.

Flyers, magazine articles, photos, drawings, bits of clothing, buttons, champagne corks and other creative remnants are there to peruse.The links are there. Enjoy the ride.

October, 2013

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Old Selfridges Hotel Archives - Elena Bowes

Half-Pipe Skates to Selfridges

Urban Zombie