Nordstrom Gets Crowned As Selfridges Restores Its Fragrance Temple

If department stores are supposed to be over, someone forgot to tell perfume. This week, The Fragrance Foundation anoints Nordstrom Inc. with Hall of Fame status, and Selfridges quietly burnishes its historic Fragrance Hall in London. I read the news, slicked on lipstick, and thought of every life-changing spritz that started at a countertop.

The Hall of Fame nod for Nordstrom Inc., tied to its 125th anniversary, will be celebrated at the Fragrance Foundation Awards on June 11 in New York. It makes sense. Whatever we say about algorithms, it is the Nordstrom ritual that lives rent free in my head, the brisk snap of a blotter, a generous sample, a sales associate who actually listens before steering you toward something luminous or weird or both.

Across the pond, Selfridges has restored the Fragrance Hall that originally opened in 1909. The concept was lifted from early 20th century Parisian counters, but Harry Gordon Selfridge did something bolder, he put beauty front and center on the ground floor so scent would hit you first. Walk in from Oxford Street and the air feels staged for encounter, a place designed for seduction by aldehydes, iris, leather and light.

If you want a time capsule of what those counters set in motion, think of early icons that taught the public to sniff like connoisseurs:

• Coty L’Origan
• Houbigant Quelques Fleurs
• Guerlain Mitsouko

These are not just classics, they are the blueprint for how we test, compare, and commit. That choreography still happens under bright lights and mirrored ceilings, even as discovery sets and micro-brands crowd our feeds.

So here is the provocation. Are department store halls still essential for perfume discovery, or just beautiful fossils with great lighting? On weeks like this, I lean essential. Awards might be politics, renovations might be theater, but the counter is still where skin answers back in real time. Congratulations to Nordstrom Inc. for the crown, and a curtsy to Selfridges for reminding us that architecture can be a perfumer’s best accomplice. In the end, you do not merely shop in these halls. You rehearse who you want to be, one spritz at a time.