Liberty & Co.

Liberty is a London department store, but for design history it is much more: it is the shop that spread the taste of Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau across Europe, so much so that in Italy the style took its name, Stile Liberty. Today it is still famous above all for its floral printed fabrics.

Arthur Lasenby Liberty

Arthur Lasenby Liberty, born in 1843, worked for ten years in a shop on Regent Street. In 1875, with a £2,000 loan from his future father-in-law, he leased half a shop at 218a on the same street, with three staff. He sold ornaments, fabrics and objets d'art, especially from Japan and the East, just when Japanese art was fascinating European artists: his customers included the painters Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James McNeill Whistler, and later Oscar Wilde, who called it “the chosen resort of the artistic shopper”, in the spirit of the Aesthetic Movement.

From shop to style

Success came quickly: the shop expanded, opened a costume department and one for carpets and furniture, and Liberty fabrics were used for both clothing and furnishings. In the 1890s Liberty built relationships with many English designers linked to Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau, including Archibald Knox. From 1899 to the 1930s the shop produced the Cymric silverware and Tudric pewter ranges, with their sinuous shapes and Celtic-inspired decoration.

The Tudor building and Liberty today

In 1924 the Tudor-style building that still houses the shop was built on Great Marlborough Street, using the timbers of two old warships, HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan; it has been a listed building since 1972. Today Liberty sells fashion, beauty and homeware, is known for discovering young designers and continues to make and sell its printed fabrics worldwide.

Sources

• Wikipedia – Liberty (department store)