With its dark furniture, high-tech gadgets and model jet plane, Philip Green's London office feels like the work space of an investment banker or hedge-fund manager. On the wall behind his enormous desk, there's even a photograph of Wall Street antihero Gordon Gekko. But on this May morning, the daytime television show flickering on his sleek, flat-screen set betrays his role as a master of an entirely different universe: women's fashion.
Green, the billionaire owner of the Arcadia Group, which controls a clutch of British clothing chains including Miss Selfridge and Wallis, is watching a spot about the latest fashion collection...