As incredible as it might sound, the Brits are now laying claim to the biggest single shoe destination in the world! Saks with its own New York City zip code was last year’s news, it is this month all about Selfridges — that venerable Oxford Street edifice in London and its 35,000 sq ft of shoes. That, if you need to put it in perspective (and since we’re in Europe), is half the size of the Palace of Versailles with 4,000 styles on display at any one time. Stack the boxes high and that would, according to Susie Lau of Selfridges & Co, The Shoes Paper, “equal the height of two Empire State Buildings and is laid out in a series of six shoe galleries with eleven surrounding apartments — the inclusive space has shoes that span the full spectrum”. This is no idle boast: from Nine West to Jimmy Choo with Chanel and Louboutin dazzling in between as well as All Saints, Birkenstock, Balmain, Converse and Chloe.

Award-winning architect Jamie Fobert affords the type of layout these brands deserve with a shoe journey that gives each pair a proper home with a garden.

Each gallery masterfully juxtaposes materials you wouldn’t normally find in a department store: velvet and glass, clay and steel, alabaster and silk, concrete and rubber. Meanwhile, the eleven surrounding apartments have been designed in collaboration with some of the world’s most iconic labels, allowing customers a glimpse into the private worlds of their designers for the first time.

“Imagine you are in a gallery,” says Selfridges’ Director of Accessories Sebastian Manes. “From the entrance you see a succession of doorways and at the end is a huge window flooding the space with daylight. Your journey begins at the front, with shoes from the best of the high street. Slowly you begin to travel through different galleries until you reach the end — the couture designer gallery, flanked by Chanel and Louboutin, and a vision of Eden – the new suspended garden at Selfridges.”

If you need to get pensive and mull over your pending shoe purchases, enjoy a soothing view of it through the seriously decadent full-height windows.

And since one should never shop on an empty stomach, the French restaurant Aubaine has been nestled into the space for brilliant salads, impressively succulent steak burgers served with way too many tasty chips and the most distracting sweet treats.

Shopping online has never felt this good or been so visually glam!

— NMW, with additional info from the Selfridges sales and marketing team