Cool Britannia back for 2012

The discredited Cool Britannia brand is set for a revival with a tourist store on Piccadilly Circus.

The two-storey shop will be filled with the "best of British" products ranging from Minis to Marmite and will open in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

The renaissance of Cool Britannia comes more than a decade after the term became the subject of derision when it was hijacked by Tony Blair after New Labour's victory in 1997.

It had fallen so far out of favour that it has never been copyrighted, allowing property developer Asif Aziz to use it as the name for the new store.

The shop will be in the former Tower Record site on the corner of Haymarket and Piccadilly Circus.

Mr Aziz, whose Criterion Capital are landlords for the site, originally wanted discount retailer TK Maxx to fill it.

However, freeholders Crown Estate vetoed the plan on the grounds that the chain did not fit with its vision for the area. It was holding out for a brand such as Gucci or Prada.

The row was heading for a legal fight before the two sides reached agreement on the Cool Britannia concept.

Life-size replicas of the Queen's knights-in-armour will stand outside, and one window will be devoted to a seasonal British event, such as Wimbledon or Ascot.

Inside, a Mini in Union Jack livery and a London black cab will hang from the ceiling.

There will be areas devoted to British fashion such as Burberry, foods such as HP Sauce and Twinings tea and CDs of British rock and pop.

Plans also include a tuck shop with glass jars of traditional sweets and an "olde worlde" bookshop.

Mr Aziz said: "Cool Britannia will be a young, exciting and vibrant brand delivering everything that is best about Britain."

The phrase Cool Britannia was first used in 1967 as the title of a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and was a Ben & Jerry's ice-cream flavour in the Nineties.

It shot to prominence in March 1997 when Vanity Fair published a Cool Britannia edition with Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit in bed on the cover.