Swift and steady growth has marked the history of Harrods’ furniture department—and not without reason. For Harrods’ policy in the matter of furnishing, as in everything else, is the one policy which always succeeds in not only winning, but holding customers—the policy of selling sound, satisfactory wares at reasonable prices. After all furniture is not bought to be used once and thrown away, nor is it changed from year to year. It is bought to endure sound and strong, not only for the lifetime of the purchaser, but as an heirloom. So that one of the most elementary requirements of furniture is that it should be built to last, and that is a quality which involves many things.

Take the question of upholstery leather, for example. Leather can be tanned in a comparatively short time by the aid of chemical treatment, but it is easy to see the inferiority of hides thus treated to those which are tanned in the good old slow way, and it makes all the difference in the life.

Or the matter of timber. There is not much difference outwardly between a well-seasoned oak and one that is but half seasoned. The difference becomes apparent when the furniture that is made from it has had a year or two’s wear, when the frames begin to crack and warp.

Fabrics too. A particular weave of tapestry is more suitable for one kind of furniture than another. This sort of linen is stronger than that, for pieces that have to stand heavy wear. It is knowledge of little points like this that counts in the making of perfect furniture.

The fillings of chairs and sofas are also matters of great importance. “Horsehair-stuffed” may mean anything according to whether the term is used by a maker who employs the first hair that comes along, short, broken, untreated, or by one who only employs the proper long hairs, duly teased and curled, the only hair that gives the true horsehair resiliency.

But it is not materials only that must be of the best; without practical skill and conscientious workmanship the best materials are wasted. What is needed is the loving hand of the craftsman, who, imbued with all the inherited skill of generations, takes a legitimate pride in his work, who spends as much care upon the perfection of the parts that do not show as upon those which are patent to the eye. There must be no scamping, no cutting down of work in the hidden parts, if furniture is to stand the test of time. The only safeguard for the purchaser that his furniture will stand that test, is to be found in dealing with a firm whose pieces have been tested and proved by half a century’s experience.

There are few occupations so fascinating as choosing furniture, whether it be displayed in a showroom or illustrated in a catalogue. But to obtain the highest satisfaction, the purchaser should deal with a house which has a wide selection to offer. There is hardly anything so annoying as to be compelled to take something which is not quite the right thing, because it is nearest to one’s ideal that the shop can offer; they will get what is wanted, of course, but—it is not the same thing.

Harrods’ stock is an enormous one, displayed in acres of showrooms and model furnished rooms, and the would-be purchaser who cannot satisfy himself there must be hard to please indeed.

Inevitably bound up with the question of stock is the question of price. Buying on a large scale always renders it possible to buy at a low price in the best market, so that by dealing at Harrods the purchaser not only has a very large selection to choose from, but he can furnish at a very much lower cost than would be involved in dealing with smaller establishments.