this paper eplores the twentieth-century ries and fall of the traditional department store Bourne and Hollingsworth in london's Oxford street as a means of re-examining the historical geographies consumption cultures. The research moves away from a preoccupation with urban retail's novelty nd spectacle towatds a consideration of the more conventional and conservative kinds of consumptuon that have been a vital part of the retail ecology of many major cities in the twentieth century