Euro arcades
With mega-malls swamping the globe, it’s easy to forget that shopping arcades were once civilised and cultured places. We visit three of the oldest and most refined
ARCADIAN TRIPS
Anyone who’s recently been lost in the 1.6m sq ft of London’s newly opened Westfield shopping mall might dispute the family resemblance, but Westfield, like other temples of commerce worldwide, is the descendent of a single stretch of covered shops connecting London’s Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens.
The Burlington Arcade was commissioned in 1819 by Lord George Cavendish and designed by his architect Samuel Ware. Its 40-odd shops specialise in luxury goods ranging from antique silver (such as Daniel Bexfield Antiques) to finest cashmere (N Peal) and while the stock may vary, all share an old-fashioned attitude to retail, staffed by experts with a solemn sense of duty to the customer.
Leather goods specialist Pickett perfectly embodies this approach. Since launching his first store in 1988, Trevor Pickett has gone on to found another three. His continued personal involvement, however, means Pickett can speak as authoritatively on the lining of a leather attaché case as he can on his business model.
The retailers could be trusted to behave themselves, but Lord Cavendish was obviously less sure about the customers. He employed retired members of his family regiment, the 10th Hussars, to enforce rules such as no whistling, no running and no opening of umbrellas.
Even the fearsome ‘beadles’, as they were known, proved helpless to defend the arcade against the more outlandish events in its history. It was ravaged by fire in 1936, visited by a poltergeist in 1953, and in 1964 masked men drove a car into the pedestrian-only arcade, smashing the windows of a store and making off with £35,000 worth of jewellery.Yet despite this tumultuous past, 189 years after it was built the Burlington Arcade still stands and – perhaps most impressively so, too, do the retail principles upon which it was founded. Ellen E Jones
Brussels Galeries St-Hubert
is still the sequence of three galleries opened in 1847 by King Leopold I. Using glass and steel, the Galeries St-Hubert created a bright, airy arcade either side of the medieval Rue des Bouchers. Brussels had recently become the capital of a newly independent Belgium and Leopold wanted prestigious building projects to glamorise the city. The site chosen was the old guildhall of the goldsmiths, which is why the goldsmiths’ motto ‘Omnia Omnibus’ (all things for all people) sits over the entrance. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The three galleries – De La Reine, Du Roi and Des Princes – have always sold the most upmarket goods to the few who could afford them. Nowadays there is an excellent bookshop, Librairie des Galeries, specializing in art books and Manufacture Belge de Dentelle sells the finest Belgian lace. The first Neuhaus chocolate shop is still at number 25 and the Café du Vaudeville where Marx, Rodin and Victor Hugo drank their hot chocolate is still a meeting place for intellectuals and exhausted shoppers. AM
Venice
Procuratie Vecchie & Procuratie Nuove
Long before Europe knew how to construct shopping arcades, the Venetians built retail outlets underneath the Procuratie Vecchie and Procuratie Nuove around St Mark’s Square in Venice. When Napoleon ordered these two administrative blocks to be joined up along the west end of the piazza in 1810, an arcade was created on three sides of the ‘drawing room of Europe’. Best known for its cafés (including the Florian, frequented by Casanova, Byron and Dickens, and Caffè Lavena,Wagner’s favourite), the arcades of the Procuratie are also home to a number of shops selling the ubiquitous Murano glass. There are, however, some more expensive outlets: Jesurum underneath the Procuratie Vecchie sells Venetian embroidery and table linen; Hermès is located at 127 Procuratie Vecchie; and Missaglia next door sells glitzy jewellery and silver. Across the piazza you’ll find Nardi at 69 Procuratie Nuove selling Moretti glass earrings and Moorish brooches (cast in the shape of a Moor’s head) that are studded with rubies and emeralds. Adrian Mourby
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