Available as Hardback, eBook, Downloadable audio
From legend of the high street Mary Portas comes a no-holds-barred account about her time as the window dresser and creative director for Harvey Nichols that is full of juicy anecdotes from the fashion world and ’90s nostalgia
A WATERSTONES BEST ENTERTAINMENT BOOK OF 2025
‘A riot’ - The Times
‘Absolutely irresistible’ - Joanna Lumley
‘I couldn’t put it down!’ - Michelle Ogundehin
‘Entertaining and energetic’ - Stylist
Chronicling how she transformed Harvey Nichols from a fusty, old-fashioned store to a thriving, cutting-edge fashion brand, this entertaining and insightful book is suffused with the heady glamour and excess of 90s Cool Britannia.
Mary takes us behind the shop window – to the people who kept the show on the road and the early lessons that shaped her career. Told with her trademark wit, grit and candour, readers will see first-hand how, armed only with the blank canvas of a shop window and her own creativity, Mary created an era-defining global brand destination.
“Portas is a sort of tornado, unpredictable, funny and slightly terrifying, travelling at the speed of light. But in the quiet eye of this storm of a book lies great wisdom and truth. Absolutely irresistible”
Joanna Lumley
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“Mary Portas’s memories of her years at Harvey Nichols draw me right back into that fascination. I Shop, Therefore I Am is so enthralling that I kept pausing in order to savour the next anecdote or clever, acidic observation … It’s worth riding alongside this observant semi-outsider, disrupter, inspirer”
times Literary Supplement
“Entertaining and energetic, it zips along as a chronicle of hilarious exchanges and changing times. But more than that, it reminds us that business is a creative act, and shopping is a conscious decision. What we buy matters - perhaps more so now than ever before - which is an empowering reflection as we head into the gift-giving of Christmas”
stylist
“If anyone wants to know what it was like to be a woman working in the heart of London fashion retail in the ’90s, Mary Portas’s book provides an entertaining rollercoaster ride”
Alexandra Shulman
“The book, featuring cameos by Naomi Campbell; Diana, Princess of Wales and other outsize personalities, is a window into the creativity and collaboration that reimagined the formerly fusty department store as a fashion destination and has propelled Ms. Portas’s career ever since”
new York Times
Mary Portas
Mary Portas is a businesswoman, broadcaster, author and activist. She has published four books: Windows: The Art of Retail Display, Shop Girl, Work Like A Woman and Rebuild. At age 32 she became a board member at Harvey Nichols before founding her own retail consultancy. Mary has since worked with some of the biggest names in global retail. Her BBC series Mary Queen of Shops premiered in 2007 and she has presented on television and radio ever since. In 2009, she partnered with Save The Children to reinvent charity shops. She also conducted a review of the future for high streets for the British government in 2011. As co-chair of the Better Business Act, Mary heads a coalition of businesses calling for a change in the law to ensure UK companies align their interests with those of wider society and the environment. In 2024 she was awarded an OBE for her services to business, broadcasting and charity.