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HBC is developing information on the stores in specific countries as well as retailing trends in. Some of these stores are not large enough to be included in our list of major stores, but none the less the information about them includes valuable details about clothing and fashion trends in those countries. We have a good bit of information about American stores, but only limited information about stores and retail trends in other countries. Hope our international readers will provide us information on the stores that they remember as children.
John Martins was the big major department store mostly in Adelaide, but all over Australia until David Jones acquired it in the late 1980s and stripped it of the famous John Martin's Christmas Parade'(around since 1933). They changed the signs on all of the stores in 1999. The beautiful old world six story building was totally torn down in 1995 or there abouts and replaced with a newer modern "Dogbox' building which is David Jones and sells exclusive boys and other family fashions for women, girls, and men just as John Martins did. An Australian reader believes that "Johnnies" did it better with good old fashion mano y mano personalized service". This store is really a modern store selling everything a store like Macy's do in the United States. Harris-Scarfe is another Adelaide icon and has been around just as long as the former John Martin's department stores. They sell boys clothes and of good quality too.
As in Germany, many prominent Austrian department stores were owned by Jews. One report indicated that as NAZI influence grew "Customers of the Jewish-owned Schwarz department store in Salzburg would sometimes wrap their items up with the paper inside out so no one could tell that they bad just been shopping at the Jewish store. After the Anschluss the NAZIs proceeded to exporpriate Jewish-owned stoes and busnisses as they had in Germany.
Three of the most important retail stores in Canada were Eaton's Morgan's and Simpsopn's. We have some information on the T. Eaton Company which were doing catlog sales as early as the 1880s. Clothing offered in the 1970s look very similar to American styles. At this time this is the only important Canadian catalog store that we know of. Apparently it was founded around the company's flagship department store. The Eaton's catalogue continued right up into the 1970s. A reader tells us that he has a copy of the 1975 catalogue. It was phased out after that and Eaton's went out of business in the 1990s. Most of the stores were then converted to Sears stores. Marks and Spencer opened stores in Canada in the 1980's and 1990's. There was a huge one in Toronto's Eaton Centre. However, they did not last long as they were too expensive for most Canadians. Marks and Spencer pulled out of Canada and closed its stores there in 2000. We have no information on Morton's other than they had a catalog.
Morgan's became the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) A Canadian reader has provided information on Simpson's. We do not know a grrat deal about the store, but notice catalogs in the 1920s. Simpson's became
Simpson-Sears.
See the "United Kingdom".
HBC at this time has only limited information on specific French companies. One French reader has mentioned the "La Redoute" catalog was well known throughhout France. The clothing offered is a good indicator of styles that were widely worn in France and by French people in overseas locations. The some styles were also widely worn in Belgium. A HBC reader reports that the major French department stores were: Les galeries Lafayette, Au bon Marché (HBC has noted advertising from this store), La Samaritaine, La belle jardinière, Le Louvre, and Le Printemps. Au Louvre was a large department store in the centre of Paris. It was particularly well regarded for its luxury good. Many Americans shop here when visiting Paris. French readers are encouraged to submit any information they may have of these stores, including any recollections of the clothes pirchased for them from these stores as boys.
Many important German department stores were founded by Jews (Tietz and Wertheim are two examples). These any many other Jewish business were adversely affected by NAZI-insired anti-Jewish boycotts. Many were damaged on Kristallnacht in 1938. The stores were then Aryanized. The Jewish owners were forced to sell their interests at nominal prices or in many cases they were simply expropriate through a variety of legal and non-legal means. Similar actions were taken aginst manufacturers and smaller retailers. The embargoes were in fact the first major step the NAZIs took against the Jews finally culminating in the Hollocaust. The Jews who survived the Hollocaust were rarely compensated for these expropriations or had their property returned to them after the War. The German fashion industry was significant affected by the NAZI program.
We do not yet have information on Japanese retailers. We have found some Japanese mailorder catalogs, but because we don't have Japanese language capability, we know nothing about because the companies involved. The major modern department stores are: Daimaru (大丸), Hankyu Department Stores (阪急百貨店 ), Isetan (伊勢丹), Matsuzakaya (松坂), Mitsukoshi (三越 ), Parco (パルコ ), Sogo & Seibu (そごう・西武), Loft (ロフト), and Takashimaya (高島屋). We do not yet know anything about them and other retailers. We have found some interesting retail displays.
C & A Kledingmagazijnen is perhaps the most impprtant Dutch department store. This Dutch company was founded in the 1880s by two brothers, C. and A. Brenninkmeyer, who came from Germany to sell mens' and boys' clothing (at first only hats and caps) door to door in the Netherlands. Now it is one of the largest clothing retail stores in the world with branches in nearly every European country and in Mexico and South America as well. They also sell ladies apparel. Other Dutch stores in this field are Peek & Cloppenburg and Vroom & Dressmann, also established by German pedlars at the end of the 19th century. Peek & Cloppenburg was founded by Johann Theodor Peek and Heinrich Cloppenburg in 1869 in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Peek & Cloppenburg
were German cloth manufacturers. There were in early 2000 are 100 stores in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria. An interesting aspect of the Dutch clothing stores is that "... the founders and owners were not Jewish like many American retailers, but rather Roman Catholic. I know as a fact that in the old days one could not advance in the company when one was not of the Catholic faith." The reason these Dutch clothing retail stores were owned by Catholics is that they were founded by German peddlers from Westphalia in Western Germany, most coming from small cities just across the border. Westphalia is predominantly Roman Catholic. While the Netherlands is a historically "protestant" country, more than half of the population now proclaims no affiliation with any church. A Dutch reader tells us, "My parents always bought our clothes in a small family-owned store, Broekman-Noordman in Utrecht, where they sold high-quality, durable, no-nonsense boys' clothing, made in the Netherlands, mostly by the
Schuttersveld and Van Heek mills and factories.
We have virtually no unformation on Russia yet. One Russian reader reports that the school uniform in the Soviet Union was little changed during the 1970s-80s. The same uniform was worn with almost no changes all over the country. It was available in any shop selling goods for children.
HBC is also collecting information on individual stores and retailers. We had originally conceived of separate sections for mailorder and regular stores. We have since reassess this decission and decided to combine this information. This allows us to use the information to better assess fashion trends over time. Our information on English stores is still very limited at this time. Some of the most important chain stores carrying boys clothing is British Home Stores and Marks and Spencers. There have been other smaller chains. One HBC reader has provided us a copy of the Colts catalog. Colts was a store operating in England and other European countries during the 1960s and 70s. There are also local boys' and menswear reatilers. These stores often stock the uniforms for local stores. We do not yet have information on mailorder companies.
All large American cities by the 1860s had department stores. Many were founded by European immigrants. Larger cities had multiple stores that were often intensely competive such as the fabled rivalry of Maceys and Gimbles endearingly told in the Chritmas classic, "Miracle on 34th St.". Often stores appealed to different clentelle. Some focused on the luxury trade while others sought the trade of low income consumers. These were not chain stores, but individual stores in each cities. It was not until the 1960s that these many of these stores began to open stores in other cities. Rural communities were poorly served until Montgomery Wards launched the mailorder business in the 1870s, followed by Sears and Roebuck in the 1880s.
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