As Storm Bert battered the glowing, Loro Piana-branded façade of Harrods on Saturday night, hundreds of mink-covered elbows battled their way through its doors for safety.
Inside, they were met by a cacophony of contactless cards bleeping tens of thousands of pounds through to Europe’s largest department store — a Wonka’s factory for the global one per cent, where billionaire’s children clamber on £120,000 model Ferraris, tourists squeeze into £8,000 Carolina Herrera sequin gowns in VIP shopping suites, and queues for the ground-floor ornament department snake further than the eye can see.
