Regent Street & Oxford Street

These two streets form the spine of London's main shopping district — Oxford Street for volume and high-street brands, Regent Street for a step up in quality and architecture, curving elegantly from Oxford Circus down to Piccadilly Circus.

Oxford Street

Oxford Street is Europe's busiest shopping street, handling around half a million visitors per day at peak times. It's primarily high-street brands — Primark, H&M, Zara, Marks & Spencer — alongside the flagship Selfridges department store at the western end. Selfridges is worth a visit in its own right regardless of your shopping intentions: the food hall and beauty hall are exceptional and the window displays are regularly among the best in London.

Regent Street

Regent Street, running parallel and to the south, has a more curated feel — Anthropologie, Liberty (just off it, on Great Marlborough Street), Apple's flagship store, and the Hamleys toy shop, one of the world's oldest and largest. The street itself, built to John Nash's early 19th-century design, is architecturally worth a walk even without shopping in mind.

Liberty London

Liberty on Great Marlborough Street deserves its own mention — a mock-Tudor department store from 1875, known for its own-print fabrics, independent beauty brands and homeware. The building itself is as much an attraction as its contents.

Tips for Visiting

• Oxford Street is genuinely very crowded on weekends and before Christmas — weekday visits are much calmer.
• Selfridges' food and beauty halls are worth visiting regardless of shopping plans.
• Liberty is a five-minute walk from Oxford Circus and easy to miss — worth seeking out.
• The Christmas lights on both streets (from mid-November) are among the best in the city.