Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 2003, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a retailer. He knows what makes us shop. His skill at

luring us into his stores has made him the hottest property on the British

High Street. Born in Como, Northern Italy, the son of a furniture shopkeeper,

he rejected the family business, failed to become a farmer, toyed with accountancy,

and finally became a buyer of merchandise for department stores.

Age 33 he found himself in London working for Habitat.

He became its managing director and from there moved to Selfridges, one of London's oldest and in the mid-90s, one of its dustiest department stores.

Here he affected a transformation which practically doubled the value of the company.

He did it by making the store his theatre, a place of spectacle with

big brands as the star performers. Now he's being asked to perform the same trick

for Marks and Spencer. He's promising us life stores from whence we will rush home with excitement, having

bought all the products we could possibly want to make our daily lives more enjoyable.

Shopping, he says, is entertainment, there is nothing else he is

vittorio radici

i suppose mister radici in a in a society which cares about what color

its loo paper is we're just sort of sitting here waiting for you to seduce

us really only't we?

Well that's the idea I think you know we are bombarded with so many information and

activity and messages and today the customer I really believe the last thing they want is

product is more emotion is more an activity is more seeing something that

...