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Christmas at Oxford Circus

A wander around Europe’s busiest retail district on the busiest shopping day of the year

By Georgios Vasilopoulos

December 23^rd, 2019

Oxford Circus tube station—for the uninitiated—is the gateway to London’s Oxford Street, Europe’s busiest retail district. With around half a million people visiting the more than 300 shops, restaurants and cafés each day, it has been London’s key shopping area since the late 1800s with big-name department stores John Lewis and Selfridges opening in the early 20th century and still running today.

Off Oxford Street are a number of other famous shopping streets including Regent Street and New Bond Street and, a few steps further, the famous Carnaby Street in Soho. A particular feature of the area is that it mixes the highest end luxury brands with independent boutiques and everyday brands—from Bvlgari to Jimmy Choo, Apple to Timberland and Sports Direct to SuperDry. Something for everyone at every salary.

A Monday afternoon in February might scratch the retail therapy itch in relative tranquility, but on the last Saturday before Christmas it’s masochistic—a chaotic mix of shoppers, tourists, buses, taxis, cars, motorbikes and bicycles, all vying for every last inch of space.

Is Oxford Circus at Christmastime a shoppers’ mecca, decked out in bright colours and thousands of LEDs to festively lift the atmosphere of London’s grey winter weather? Or is it a rapacious orgy of materialism, carefully crafted with sinister precision to psychologically extract maximum spending from all who brave the crowds?

Whatever your view, it’s consumerism at its peak. It’s sensory overload. And it’s something perversely wonderful to experience firsthand at least once in a lifetime.