Emma Soames
My respect for Mary Portas has been renewed by her report on how to save the British high street from what looks alarmingly like the wrecking ball. Easy credit, greedy landlords and short-sighted planning, combined with online shopping and out-of-town megastores, have all but exterminated many high streets and shopping centres. But so have our own attitudes.
In the Eighties I lived in parts of the Middle East where shopping was the dire end of non-existent; my idea of heaven on earth was Basingstoke shopping centre. I’ve not visited it in years, but I strongly suspect that the town’s high street is no longer the stuff of dreams where I’d find happiness.
Even a recent visit to Westfield, that modern Mecca of mall shopping in West London, proved to be an utterly soulless experience from which I walked away overwhelmed by choice, exhausted and dissatisfied. I suspect we have become spoilt by brands that have milked our lust for shopping to oblivion, while shiny shoes and next-day delivery are only too easily available from your cosy workstation. And then there’s the self- loathing that now goes with shopping for anything but essentials – the rustle of some crisp tissue paper as I open a bag or box can bring on a bout.
Of all Mary’s recommendations, the most important is surely to find reasons for us to use high streets that are not necessarily based purely on shopping. Restaurants, services, gyms, converting some buildings to residential use and community spaces are what could save high streets and make them fit for a purpose. We need reasons to visit them without coming away stressed and impoverished.
Thirty years ago, this magazine successfully campaigned for seating in supermarkets. Our readers are a practical bunch who should be great high-street users. Should we join the high-street debate and add our suggestions as to how they can be rejuvenated for the world we now live in?
The symptom of recession that I find most depressing and anger-inducing is the theft of metal and copper, which happens almost daily right across the country. As well as being a far from victimless crime, it is a demonstration of almost total moral vacuity. Thousands of commuters have had their already stressed lives made more miserable by delays caused when copper cabling is ripped from the rail network; war memorials have been torn out of their stone casings and slides have been stolen from children’s playgrounds. It takes the breath away.
Perhaps the most audacious piece of cultural vandalism – well, so far – is the theft of a Barbara Hepworth sculpture that’s been sitting in Dulwich Park in south London for more than 40 years. Probably worth £500,000 as a Hepworth, minding its own lovely business and enhancing a public place, it would apparently be worth only £1,500 in used tenners as scrap.
If estate agents were the villains of the Eighties and bankers the demons of the Nineties, scrap-metal dealers are putting in an almost unbeatable bid to be the most despicable people of this decade – indeed, of this century so far. But until lawmakers find a way to make the theft and sale of stolen scrap a highly unprofitable activity that ends much more often at Her Majesty’s pleasure, can I say just that if the Queen Mother’s gates at the entrance of Hyde Park were to disappear, I don’t think many Londoners would weep.
Many regard the hint of the existence of the Higgs boson particle to be a highly significant event in the progress of mankind, but for me the most exciting recent breakthrough has been the news that a superchic 90-year-old New Yorker, Iris Apfel, is having a range of make-up dedicated to her. The nonagenarian textile designer and fashion icon, who’s inspired many museum exhibitions, is a much-admired and highly stylised figure – from her huge black-rimmed glasses to her bright red nails. Her look is in the school of Diana Vreeland and, thanks to this, plus her verve and wit, she is admired by generations many decades younger. Now MAC, the make-up brand, is basing a whole range around the bright pinks, greens and other peacock shades with which she illuminates a room, all to be packaged to reflect the look of her trademark glasses. So treasure this moment: if you are feeling invisible at 65, work your own look and by 90 you may be right in the thick of it again.