Monday 1st July. Welcome to Sportopia, Selfridges season ticket to summer. Throughout July and August, Selfridges becomes a sports venue like no other, with major-league brand collaborations that create immersive destinations in-store, fun and games on every floor and different ways to connect with sporting heroes and grassroots communities. Sportopia welcomes everyone to support, socialise and play.
Action highlights include a sports bar, tennis and Olympic swimming pool experiences and an unmissable 40ft climbing wall. An all-star line-up of launches and destinations includes Lacoste, Champion, Nike, OMEGA, Lewis Hamilton, David Beckham and Ellie Simmonds.
Sportopia windows explore the artistry and energy of the world’s best loved sports, as well as the niche and new. Expect a vibrant and inclusive spectrum: from underwater rugby to fashion archery, pub darts to parkour. Both windows and the Sportopia events program platform some of Selfridges favourite clubs: Bugeisha Club, Gorp Girls, The Grove DIY, Tempo and Whippets FC.
Artists Corbin Shaw and Anna Lomax have been commissioned to create site-specific, sports-inspired works for Orchard and Duke Street windows. Sheffield-born Shaw explores analternative side to sports and the emotional connection it brings and Lomax has created three sculptures, responding to the brief of celebration. Selfridges has also worked with visual artist Emily Pugh on windows and to create bespoke Sportopia flags for the central atrium in the London store.
“We are ready for a huge celebration of sport at Selfridges this summer. Sportopia presents a universe of leisure and recreation, inspired in turn by major international sporting events, by local, grassroots sporting communities and by the fascinating culture of brand fandom.” Says Selfridges Chief Creative, Laura Weir. “Selfridges’ unique approach to delivering special and unexpected retail experiences will inject some positive, active energy into our London, Manchester and Birmingham stores.”
Sportopia Destinations
Selfridges favourite destinations across the Oxford Street store have been reimagined as sporting venues in collaboration with the world’s biggest brands. Watch Wimbledon on the Selfridges rooftop and enjoy a tennis-inspired menu at Le Club Lacoste. In the Selfridges Corner Shop, keep time with official Olympic timekeeper OMEGA from mid-July with an immersive swimming concept. On the Lower Ground Floor, Harry Gordon’s Bar is transformed into an all-American Champion Sports Bar, with live sport and classic Champion memorabilia. Digitally try on Selfridges sports merch as well as its favourite football kits at Snapchat’s Augmented Reality (AR) Locker Room at the atrium on 3. Across the store, unexpected spaces to participate, featuring chess boards, table football and arcade sports games, as well as a permanent skate bowl, offer entertainment for players and spectators alike.
Sportopia Social Climbers: The Climbing Column, London and The Climbing Wall Birmingham
For six weeks, visitors to Selfridges can even scale the walls at Selfridges in London on Edwards Mews (from 18 July) and at the atrium in the Birmingham store (from 25 July). Inspired by Selfridges’ 100-year legacy of sporting spectacle, the climbing wall will be an unmissable experience: radical in design and made to bring people together. Los Angeles-based multi-discipline creative studio – and frequent collaborators of Virgil Abloh – PLAYLAB have taken the 1909 Beaux Arts façade of Selfridges London store as reference, creating a bespoke 40 ft ‘climbing column’ on Edwards Mews, bookable for groups of up to six at a time. In Birmingham, a 30 ft climbing wall will be installed in the atrium space in the centre of store.
Sportopia Events Program
In the Selfridges cinema, watch the Euros in style or catch a screening of undisputed sporting classics like Rocky, A League of their Own and Bend it like Beckham. In London, run, dance and learn to DJ with Tempo, the DJ-led running community, or join Better The Next Day for 3k run at a pace to suit around Birmingham city centre. Get ready for yoga on the roof with Alo, Sportswear Upcycling Services with Reselfridges resident stylist and designer, CHLOE BAINES, skate sessions in The Bowl with Off/White and join the Gorp Girls community for climbing sessions on the wall.
Sportopia Product
As ever, Selfridges summer series of product launches and services inspire and offer solutions, rooted in the world of sport. Vintage kit, merch mania, the most-wanted collaborations and collections founded and backed by the biggest names in sport offer Selfridges take on the best sportswear obsessions now. Only at Selfridges launches include +44’s ‘Home Turf’ collection from founder Lewis Hamilton, Eyewear by David Beckham and a new boutique space for LA lifestyle brand Sporty & Rich. Also introducing the first athleisure collection by DEWEY Clothing, the innovative height-inclusive brand for individuals under 5ft, endorsed by five-time Paralympic champion, BAFTA winner, and youngest MBE recipient, Ellie Simmonds OBE. A limited edition, commemorative SPORTOPIA merch collection includes home and away kits, recycled frisbees and accessory of the season – the foam finger.
100 years of Sporting Spectacle at Selfridges
Selfridges shoppers have been entertained by sporting experiences since the 1920s, when a swimming pool, ice rink and even a shooting range appeared on the roof. In 1929, the Golden Arrow, a record-breaking car which broke the land speed record in Daytona travelled from the USA to be exhibited at Selfridges. The store hosted an annual “Sports Meeting”, which in 1943 included an egg and spoon race and an “ankle-judging competition”. More recently, in 2017 a roof-top Crazy Golf Course created with Bompas & Parr featured Seven Wonders of London (Selfridges first hosted Crazy Golf on the roof in the thirties). In 2018, creative and muse Michele Lamy opened a boxing club in Selfridges and in the same year, the world’s first in-store skate bowl opened in menswear on 1, at the corner of Oxford and Duke Street, with views over the city.
Images are available to download here.
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