In August 1985, Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al Fayed completed a deal that stunned the British retail world—he paid more than £600 million to acquire Harrods, the legendary department store on Brompton Road. At the time, it was one of the largest retail acquisitions in British history, and it placed one of London’s most storied institutions under the control of a controversial outsider. The purchase was the culmination of a personal quest that had begun more than a century earlier, when a young grocer named Charles Henry Harrod opened a small shop in Knightsbridge in 1849. Harrod started with little more than tea, sugar, and an understanding that London’s rising middle class wanted quality without aristocratic fuss.
His promise was simple: every item would be fresh, every transaction fair. The business grew steadily through the 1860s and 1870s, expanding into adjacent rooms and adding departments for meat, bread, and flowers. By 1880, the store employed more than 100 staff and annual sales reached several thousand pounds. Harrod passed the business to his son in the early 1880s, and the younger Harrod expanded the vision further—the store would not just sell goods, it would sell the dream that anyone with money could live like the rich.
That vision nearly ended in December 1883, when fire tore through the building. Flames consumed shelves stocked with wood, paper, and fabric, and by dawn the roof had collapsed. Rather than walk away, Charles Harrod made an audacious promise: every customer’s Christmas order would still be delivered on time, in full. He rented temporary space, called in favors from suppliers, and worked around the clock reconstructing orders from memory.
The deliveries arrived as promised, and the store’s reputation became a legend. Harrod chose to rebuild on a grand scale. He hired architects and brought in a manager named Richard Burbage, who understood that the future belonged to spectacle. By 1890, the new building had opened with multiple floors, wide staircases, electric lighting, and departments for clothing, furniture, perfume, and jewels.
The rebuild covered more than 20,000 square feet, employed over 300 staff, and pushed annual sales past £100,000. The terracotta facade was completed in 1905, rising five stories along Brompton Road with arched windows and ornate cornices. By the time World War I began, Harrods employed more than 6,000 people and had become the largest department store in Europe. It held royal warrants, official endorsements marking it as fit to serve the crown, and its motto declared it offered “all things for all people everywhere.
”
The store survived the Depression and World War II, when staff slept in the basement during air raids. By the 1950s, it was booming again. Escalators were installed and became iconic symbols of social mobility. The store grew to cover more than 1 million square feet across seven floors, holding over 330 departments and employing more than 5,000 people at peak.
Annual sales climbed into the millions of pounds. When Al Fayed acquired Harrods in 1985, it held royal warrants and was the most famous department store in the world, with annual revenue topping £300 million. He immediately set about reshaping it in his image, adding Egyptian statues and rebuilding the escalators with brass railings and sphinxes. He installed himself in an office on the upper floors and hosted events courting celebrities and politicians.
But the British establishment did not embrace him. Al Fayed wanted citizenship and recognition as a philanthropist, but his applications were rejected and questions were raised about his wealth and intentions. The more he pushed, the more resistance he met, and the rejection turned to bitterness. Harrods became both his fortress and his weapon—a monument to his defiance.
In the mid-1990s, a political scandal known as “cash for questions” erupted around allegations that Al Fayed had paid members of Parliament to ask questions on his behalf. Two Conservative MPs were named: Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith. Smith admitted accepting payments and resigned, while Hamilton denied the claims and sued Al Fayed for defamation. The trial exposed private conversations and financial records, and Hamilton ultimately lost after the court found that Al Fayed’s claims were substantially true.
Al Fayed’s son, Dodi, grew up in the shadow of his father’s ambitions. Born in 1955 and raised between continents, Dodi worked in film production and moved through circles of wealth and celebrity but lacked clear direction. His father wanted him to take over the empire, but Dodi seemed more interested in parties than business. In the summer of 1997, Dodi met Princess Diana, who was freshly separated from Prince Charles.
They were photographed together on Al Fayed’s yacht in the Mediterranean, and the press followed their every move. Dodi took Diana shopping at Harrods, walking through the Egyptian halls beneath the golden ceilings. The media speculated endlessly about engagement and marriage. For Al Fayed, the relationship represented vindication—if his son married the mother of the future king, the establishment would have no choice but to accept the family.
On August 30, 1997, Dodi and Diana traveled to Paris, where they stayed at the Ritz Hotel, also owned by Al Fayed. Shortly after midnight, they left the hotel trying to evade paparazzi, using a decoy car while they climbed into a black Mercedes driven by Henri Paul, the hotel’s head of security. Paul had been drinking; his blood alcohol level was later measured at more than three times the French legal limit. The car entered the Pont de l’Alma tunnel at high speed, estimated at 105 kilometers per hour in a 50-kilometer-per-hour zone, and struck the 13th pillar.
Dodi was killed instantly. Diana suffered massive internal injuries and died at a Paris hospital in the early hours of August 31, 1997. The bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor. Al Fayed could not accept that his son had died because of a drunk driver.
He insisted there was a plot, claiming British intelligence had orchestrated the crash and that the royal family had ordered Diana’s death to prevent her from marrying a Muslim. He repeated these claims in interviews and in the memorials he built inside Harrods. French and British investigations found no evidence of conspiracy. The British inquest, conducted over six months in 2007 and 2008, returned a verdict of unlawful killing, meaning the driver and paparazzi bore responsibility through reckless behavior—but there was no murder and no plot.
Within days of the crash, mourners laid flowers outside Harrods, treating the store like a shrine. In April 1998, Al Fayed unveiled a memorial in the basement featuring a bronze statue of Dodi and Diana dancing, titled “Innocent Victims. ” A second, more elaborate memorial was added on the ground floor in 2005 with a pyramid of crystal, photographs, and an eternal flame. He also sold commemorative items bearing the couple’s images, which critics called exploitation.
In the first year after the crash, an estimated 3 million extra visitors came to Harrods, many specifically to see the memorials. Staff were trained to handle customers who wept in the aisles and left flowers. The store reported annual sales exceeding £400 million in the years after the crash, and the memorials stayed in place for over a decade. In May 2010, Al Fayed agreed to sell Harrods to Qatar Holding, the investment arm of the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, for around £1.
5 billion—more than double what he had paid in 1985. He said he wanted to retire. The new owners quickly removed the memorials to Dodi and Diana. Al Fayed protested, calling it disrespectful, but the Qataris said they wanted Harrods to move forward as a store rather than a shrine.
The Qatari owners invested heavily in renovations, reportedly spending more than £300 million on upgrades between 2010 and 2015. They modernized operations, expanded the beauty halls, and focused on international clientele. By the mid-2010s, more than half of Harrods’ revenue came from tourists, and annual revenue climbed past £1 billion. The store attracted 15 to 20 million visitors each year and employed around 5,000 staff.
Al Fayed retreated from public life after the sale. He spent time at his estate in Scotland and eventually died in 2023 at the age of 94. His quest for acceptance had failed, his conspiracy theories had been dismissed, and the memorials he built had been dismantled. Some longtime staff still speak of Harrods as if it demands loyalty and extracts a price from those who try to possess it.
They point to the fire of 1883, the wars, and the owners who left broken. But rational explanations are plentiful: high-stakes businesses attract driven people, and driven people make sacrifices. Al Fayed’s loss was the result of a car crash caused by a drunk driver, not a supernatural force. What remains is a more simple and brutal truth.
Harrods has survived for more than 170 years, outlasting the family that founded it, the manager who rebuilt it, and the billionaire who bought it to prove his worth. The building still stands on Brompton Road, glowing each night as if untouched by grief. The memorials are gone now, but the store remembers through the stories people tell and the images that linger. It belongs to no one.
It never did. And it will stand long after the next dreamer arrives.