Harrods: founded in 1849, and now home to four advent calendars

On the site

The Harrods advent calendar, at a glance

Every line Harrods currently runs, each with its own listing, price and stock status. Pre-orders for the 2026 range opened through the Harrods app in early August, ahead of wider availability in September, and the Fragrance line sold out within hours of going live, according to The Independent’s review.

The brand

Harrods’ story, from a Knightsbridge grocer’s shop to Qatar’s flagship department store

Founded

1849, Knightsbridge

Current building

Opened 1905

Owner

Qatar Investment Authority (since 2010)

Turnover

£898.4m (year to Feb 2024)

First calendar on our file

2019

Charles Henry Harrod opened his Knightsbridge shop in 1849, starting in a single room with two assistants and a messenger boy, mainly selling tea and groceries, according to the BBC’s history of the store. A fire destroyed much of the building in 1883; Harrods rebuilt with architect C. W. Stephens, and the ornate terracotta building shoppers recognise today, commissioned by the founder’s son Charles Digby Harrod, wasn’t finished until 1905.

Ownership has moved several times since. House of Fraser bought the business in 1959. In 1985, the Egyptian-born businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed and his brother Ali bought House of Fraser, Harrods’ parent company at the time, for £615 million, and later separated Harrods from the rest of the group. In May 2010, Al-Fayed sold Harrods to Qatari investors for around £1.5 billion, the BBC reported at the time; the store has traded under the Qatar Investment Authority ever since.

The numbers give a sense of scale: turnover grew 8% to £898.4 million for the year to February 2024, a record for the business, with £180 million paid out to its Qatari shareholders in dividends, according to TheIndustry.fashion’s report on the accounts. Harrods is a multi-brand department store, not a manufacturer, and its beauty calendars mix products from dozens of outside labels instead of a single house range; we haven’t found any brand-wide certification, vegan, cruelty-free or organic, that applies to Harrods itself, since it doesn’t make what it sells.

Data · the range

Four calendars, from £40 to £270

As of 4 September 2026, Harrods runs four separate advent calendars side by side, each pitched at a different budget.

The Beauty calendar carries the name and the price; the other three exist to bring people into the range at a lower ticket, chocolate at one end, fragrance closer to the top. Four entry points instead of one is what sets Harrods apart from a single flagship calendar sold at a single price.

Data · evolution over time

Four seasons at £250, then a £20 rise to £270

Our own archive photos tell part of this story. The earliest packshot we hold, from 2019, shows a navy-blue box unfolding into a paper Christmas tree of numbered drawers. By 2021, the Chocolate calendar had taken on the dark green and gold design, printed with the Knightsbridge building’s domed roofline, that Harrods still uses across the range. Our 2023 photo shows the Beauty line’s green and gold facade box, marked ’25 Days of Beauty’, a design largely unchanged in the editions we’ve seen since. The building on the box has stayed constant even as the products inside, and the number of calendars on sale, have grown.

Why the top price moved this year, after four seasons flat at £250, isn’t a mystery for once. Harrods has actually said what changed: two extra products overall for 2026, and the full-size count up from 14 to 21, according to The Independent’s review, which frames the £20 rise as the cost of a bigger, more generous box, not a straightforward mark-up. We haven’t found evidence pointing to a change of distributor or format behind it, so a bigger box looks like the more likely driver than wider cost pressure in the beauty sector, though we can’t rule the second one out entirely.

The price, season by season, since our records begin

A season’s median across several lines and a single line’s price aren’t the same measurement. Figures for 2022 to 2025 come from full exports of our own live database, taken each season; a separate note kept by the team in 2022 recorded one calendar at £250, matching the top of that season’s range.

From the 2019 navy box to the green facade, in photos

Box photography from our own archive at adventcalendar.co.uk, the oldest of the three dating to 2019.

Reception

What reviewers actually say, and how fast it sells out

The Independent’s IndyBest desk gave the 2026 Beauty calendar 4.5 out of 5, calling it comfortably Harrods’ most generous beauty advent calendar to date in its review of the £270 edition. The reviewer, in her third year covering beauty advent calendars for the title, praised the mix of heritage names such as Augustinus Bader and newer brands such as Sync Beauty, while noting a genuine reservation alongside the praise: ‘I’d still take any “full-size” claims with a pinch of salt’. Separately, Harper’s Bazaar UK headlined its own look at the calendar ‘the most luxurious of the year’, in a piece updated on 1 September 2026.

The clearest sign of demand is how quickly stock has gone. The Independent’s own headline for its Beauty review reads ‘The Harrods beauty advent calendars have started to sell out’, and the same piece reports that pre-orders for the Fragrance calendar sold out within hours of opening through the Harrods app in early August, with further stock only expected once all four calendars are dispatched in September. That’s not a discount story, it’s a scarcity one, and it’s worth knowing before deciding how early to buy.

Data · against the field

Three rivals sit close on price; one costs far less

We track the Harrods Beauty calendar against three other department-store beauty calendars in a similar price band, plus one high-street alternative at a fraction of the cost, all sold in the UK.

Each line in this table is a real product from our own catalogue, its price and value drawn from that same listing. When a rival runs more than one calendar, we’ve kept the one priced nearest to Harrods Beauty and set the rest of its range aside.

None of the three department-store rivals undercuts Harrods by more than £20, so choosing between them is mostly a question of which halls, and which brand mix, you’d rather shop from. Marks & Spencer is a different proposition entirely: at £195 less, it’s the calendar for someone who wants the format without the department-store price tag, not a substitute for what’s inside the Harrods box.

Data · price and promotions

Where and when to buy the Harrods advent calendar at the best price

As of 4 September 2026, only the Beauty calendar is marked available in our catalogue, with stock live from 10 September 2026 at £270. The Chocolate, Fragrance and Hair and Body calendars are still marked available soon, at £40, £225 and £99.

We haven’t found a record of a Harrods advent calendar being discounted before launch. What the 2026 season has shown instead is scarcity: The Independent reported the Fragrance calendar’s pre-orders selling out within hours in early August, and its own headline for the Beauty review states plainly that the calendars have started to sell out. If a specific line matters to you, particularly Fragrance, that points toward buying as soon as stock allows, instead of waiting for a lower price.

All four lines are sold, and tracked by us, on Harrods’ own site.

You can also browse every calendar currently on offer on our deals and discounts page.

Frequently asked questions

What people actually ask us about the Harrods advent calendar

Read on: our deals and discounts page, the Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason pages, and the current Beauty Advent Calendar listing.