Tickets £5 - £22
This is a live, in-person event.
Location: Christ Church Morningside, 6a Morningside Rd, EH10 4DD.
We're thrilled to welcome legend of the high street, beloved designer and broadcaster Mary Portas to Edinburgh, as she joins Sam Baker to discuss her brand new memoir, I Shop Therefore I Am: The 90s, Harvey Nicks – and Me.
A Guardian 'best book to look forward to in 2025', this new book is a no-holds-barred account about Mary's time as the window dresser for Harvey Nichols that is full of juicy anecdotes from the fashion world and 90s nostalgia.
About the book:
It’s the 1990s: Britpop is dominating the charts, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell stare out from the cover of every glossy magazine and British fashion is ripe for reinvention. Leading the charge is a twenty-something Mary Portas who has been brought in to revitalise the department store Harvey Nichols, at the time more likely to be associated with dowagers than daring designers.
With department stores in decline and an alpha male leadership team watching closely, the pressure is immense: make it profitable and make it relevant. Mary steps into a world she doesn’t fully understand – and at first, it shows. But what seems like vulnerability quickly reveals itself as vision. She doesn't rely on fitting in; she leans into instinct, takes bold creative risks and reimagines what luxury could be. By the millennium, the store would be renowned for its outrageous, headlinegrabbing, traffic-stopping window displays; patronage by style icon Lady Di and Bolly-swigging duo Patsy and Edina of the iconic sitcom Ab Fab – no longer fusty old Harvey Nicols but Harvey Nicks, daaarling! I Shop, Therefore I Am is the story of how she did it.
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.
About the author:
Mary Portas is one of the UK’s most high-profile and innovative businesswomen. After making her name transforming Harvey Nichols into a global fashion destination, Mary launched Portas, her own creative company, with the mission to transform businesses into brands, places and spaces people want in their lives. Today her team work with clients ranging from Mercedes to Sainsbury’s. She has been a regular on our TV screens, advised the government on the future of high streets and developed a fashion label. Her proudest achievement to date is the creation of twenty-six Mary's Living & Giving shops for Save the Children. She is the author of Shop Girl, Work Like a Woman and Rebuild.
About our chair:
Sam Baker is a journalist, broadcaster and editor. She grew up in Hampshire and after a degree in politics at Birmingham University became a journalist, going on to edit some of the UK’s biggest magazines, including Cosmopolitan and Red. In 2015 she co-founded The Pool with Lauren Laverne. Sam is the author of five novels. Her first work of non-fiction, has been so successful that Sam has made a podcast out of it! The Shift: how I (lost and) found myself after 40 – and you can too,
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