Liberty (department store)

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The Liberty store on Great Marlborough Street

Liberty is a well known store in Regent Street in central London, England at the heart of the West End shopping district. It was founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875 to sell ornaments, fabrics and miscellaneous art objects from Japan and the Far East.

Liberty & Co. first catered for an eclectic mixture of popular styles, but then went on to develop a fundamentally different style closely linked to the aesthetic movement of the 1890s and the "new art" (Art Nouveau). The company become synonymous with this new style to the extent that in Italy, Art Nouveau became known as Stile Liberty after the London shop.

Liberty still has a distinctive style and produces some of its own fabrics. Its building is comprised of two wings. The older wing fronts Great Marlborough Street and is one of the most prominent Tudor revival buildings in London. The Regent Street wing is early 20th century neo-Baroque, like most of the rest of Regent Street. These days the shop sells up to date fashions, cosmetics, accessories, gifts etc. in addition to its acclaimed homewares and furniture departments. The shop is noted for not feeling like a typical large department store, as it is small and intimate with stairs and decorative elevators instead of escalators and is spread out around several wooden balconied, "mock-Tudor" style atriums with glass roofs over, which are decorated with thousands of tiny lights at Christmas.

Since 1988 Liberty has had a subsidiary in Japan which sells Liberty branded products in leading Japanese shops. It also sells Liberty fabrics to international and local fashion brands with bases in Japan.