“The high street is dead. Long live the internet!” These are the words that should be shouted from every fashion lover's rooftop. It's true; the British high street has declined into a cesspit of faux boutiques selling their second hand rubbish at extortionate prices and department stores full of needless home wares and boring clothes. I'm a young guy, I don't like wearing slacks and golf jumpers. At the same time I don't want to have to spend three quarters of my time rifling through a polystyrene dump to come home with a single piece of unwanted eighties clothing which doesn't actually fit properly.

If I had my own way I would enforce my elitist view upon the high street. Thus follows a record of what would be erected in my ideal world, using Oxford Street as a foundation.

To start with I would make the road much shorter; I don't want to spend aeons trudging between shops. Then I would keep some of the already existing shops, Selfridges and Kurt Geiger for example. Selfridges isn't literally a shop but I think of it as mother, housing many brilliant baby shops. To go with that big yellow department store I would take the glorified tourist attraction Harrods away from Knightsbridge and then have it replaced with the chic centre of the Universe: Colette. As one of my favourite places to shop on Earth it would be shipped brick by brick from Paris over onto my new and improved Oxford Street. With my two department stores and single shop currently in place I would scour the land for those exceptional shops which combine eclectic style with that independent zing that you would never find in the monotonous drones of most chain stores.

This high street wouldn't just be made up of clothing stores though. It would have to include a couple of music shops as well. When I say a couple I actually mean a separate one for each genre of music. In fact that means they would have to form a terraced line with doors interconnecting each, allowing me to find exactly what I want when I want it. Minimum time, maximum purchase. With clothes and music sorted the only thing left to add is some coffee shops to relax in when buying has taken it's toll on your fatigue. Obviously it would have to be a student establishment because if the food isn't cheap then it isn't worth buying; you don't want to be taking your valued pennies away from clothes or music.

With shops in place only a few things remain to be done. The first would be a cap upon the number of people allowed on the street at any one time. This might seem a slightly fascist approach but it would allow for a greater happiness for those fortunate enough to be shopping. Then, everything would have to be decorated to a minimalist aesthetic because... well because. As a final gift, I would allow a single quality vintage store to set up shopI say single because vintage shops have become exceptionally overrated of late. They have started being used as a front for the sale of unwanted junk that should rightly be recycled and made into decent clothing. Therefore the single one will suffice.

So there you have it, my ideal high street. Now all I need to do is wait for this parallel dimension to spring into existence.

Text by Samuel Rowe | Illustration by OHGEE