Selfridges unveils Christmas windows

Selfridges unveiled its Christmas windows today with a series of festive family settings ranging from a dolls' house to an urban tower block.

The retailer said it had dressed its 27 streetside windows with a "play" theme, encouraging youngsters and adults alike to "awake the child within".

The main Oxford Street windows feature a series of miniature toy Christmases including a Sylvanian Family in a trailer park and Barbie and Ken in a kitsch living room.

The four Orchard Street windows turn to modern versions of the family Christmas, showing "the Shoreditch trendy dad, the PR queen mum, the brainbox daughter and their trusted family pet".

The store's largest window has been dedicated to the Kids Company charity and features an estate of urban tower blocks, complete with neon satellite dishes and TV aerials.

Children from the charity will be invited to take on the role of window designers and builders to create a vision of their dream Christmas.

Erin Thompson, head of windows and visual merchandising at Selfridges, said: "This year we are responding to the shift for the simpler pleasures in life and are really keen to get all our customers starry-eyed, especially the adults among them.

"There is nothing more fun than being a kid, whatever your age, and our play theme reflects this from the outside in."