Selfridges is skilled at making things that are not hideous (women) look hideous (women dressed as Bungle from Rainbow or a tree, after shopping at Selfridges). So I was not surprised to discover that it has summoned a ‘pop-up’ restaurant to its roof. It is called Vintage Salt and it is based on a Cornish fishing village. Not a real one, such as Newlyn, but a fake one, such as Padstow, which is based on Selfridges anyway. Selfridges shoppers do not want reality but a half-remembered contortion of something they read in Vogue while having their hair dyed banana yellow in St John’s Wood High Street in the company of a chihuahua smarter than they are.
The portal is an express lift in Fragrance. This is the point, I suppose, at which Vintage Salt and Newlyn part company, if ever they met — when I pass a group of women in ink-black burkas and Dior handbags spraying perfume over themselves, because then they will feel different.
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