Shopping on Oxford Street

As one of the busiest streets in the world, Oxford Street is the perfect place to shop until you drop. The mixture of chain stores and cut-price shops run for two miles from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch.

Selfridges is the largest and best-stocked department store on the street, which also boasts John Lewis, Debenhams, DH Evans and Marks & Spencer.

Another side street which is enjoying a revival (thanks to the designers' current obsession with the sixties) is Carnaby Street.

Until the 1950s Carnaby Street was dominated by sweat-shop tailors who made the suits for Saville Row. But in the mid-1950s Bill Green opened a shop called Vince selling outrageous clothes for the growing gay population. A string of trendy boutiques followed and by the 1960s Carnaby Street became the heart of funky street fashion.

Today, it is largely populated by tourists and its tacky souvenir shops are not exactly at the cutting edge of style. But Newburgh Street, which cuts across Carnaby Steet, has become home to a number of innovative designers such as John Richmond, Pam Hogg and Jean Paul Gaultier.

So whether you want wild style or conservative chic Oxford Steet and its many cooler back streets are sure to have something to suit.