|
HBC has developed information on the following department stores, clothing retailers, and mail order companies. We are just beginning to gather information on the individual stores. HBC would be interested in reader comments about the stores in their countries. We are interested in childhood memories as well as the current status of the stores.
Allders stores are located all over the United Kingdom. They sell clothing along with a wide range of other items, including furniture, housewares, and kitchenware from big brand names and private labels. Allders is the U.K.'s fourth-largest department store group. The apparel names may be glamorous, but furniture contributes the most to sales. The company has been expanding its private labels, including its trendy, youth-oriented fashion brand Act 3.
B. Altman was a lengendary New York Department store. The store, like several others (Best & Company, Bonwit Teller, and others) descended from the dozens of grand emporiums that graced New York in the late 19th century, an era when department stores were among the city's first public places to feature electricity, elevators, and escalators. The store was founded by Benjamin Altman who according to store publications, was devoted to the principle of "an upright, honest merchant who could make fair dealing and impeccable reliability the watchwords of his life". The foundations of the Altman business were a small store on 3rd Avenue, near 10th Street. Altman repotedly selected "his merchandise with the fine artistic taste and the infallible sense of values which were among his most salient characteristics, and paying cash for every bill of goods he purchased, he early established, both for himself and his store, a reputation for reliability which has
never been assailed because it is unassailable." Altman's was one of the most important New York department stores in the early 1990s. Selected pages from the 1915 catalog have even been published to illustrate American fashions of the the 1910s. At the time, New York was America's fashion center.
Most historians claim the Magasin au Bon Marché in Paris was the world's first true department store (1852). Au bon Marché is still a large Paris department store. HBC has acquired some Au Bon Marché advertisments for boys clothing from the early 20th century. It is considered by some to be the oldest and the classiest department store in Paris. Gustave Eiffel had a hand in its design. Womenswear (first floor) carries avant-garde as well as classic designers and a sophisticated lingerie department. Elsewhere you'll find a glossy menswear department, kitchen and household items, bedlinens, curtain fabrics, furniture, stationery, a large bookshop, children's toys and clothes. Shop 2 contains an excellent food hall, bar and restaurant, as well as an antiques arcade.
The Besse System was a group of 20 some clothing stores inthe Northeast. We note advertisements for these stores during the 1900s and 10s. The stores were founded by Lyman Waterman Besse (1854- ). Besse was not born wealthy. He made his way by clerking in several dufferent stores, learning the retail business. He finally opned his first clothing store in Bridgepoer, Massachusettes (1877). It was originally a small school handling men's clothing and furnishing goods He proved so successful that he opened a second store in nearby Hartfird, Connecticut (1884). A series of other stores followed, most in the Northeast (1880s-1900s). He opened a wholesale office in Boston (1902). In all his stores he had a local partner who served as a resident manager which is what he called a Besse System. The compamy ckainmed that they could offer better prices as a result of this corporate structure. A compamy was formed for each store. As a result, some of the advertising has corporate sponsorshipp like the Besse-Sprague Compamy. This was the store in Syracuse New York. Besse would eventually operate stores in 27 cities and become one of the weaklthiest clothing retailers in the United States.
The Best & Company appaers to have been an important New York City department store that went natioanl. The built a large store at 645 5th Avenue at East 51st Street, NE Corner (Wing on 52nd Street). It was located in Midtown Manhattan. The building was replaced by the Olympic Tower of Aristotle Onassis. I am not sure when the comapny was founded, but note that they were active in the 1950s and 60s. They varried an extensive line of fashionanle clothes. We know that Best & Company was a major U.S. depattment store chain, bit have little information on the company at this time.
Bloomies is certainly one of the most fabled American department stores. It is located on America's most renowned and certainly tallest shopping mile in New York. The area spans 25 blocks, anchored at one end by Macy's on Herald Square and at the other by Bloomingdale's on 59th Street (between Lexington and Third Avenues), span five avenues west to east and include the country's most renowned concentration of grand, historic department stores. Actually ahalf-dozen of these great American stores survive. They are now widely spaced between hundreds of specialty stores on and off Fifth Avenue.
The Bon-Ton Stores operate more than 70 department stores in smaller markets traditionally underserved by the larger retail chains. Most
Bon-Ton stores are located in the northeastern states, especially Pennsylvania and New York. There are also a few stores in Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Vermont, and West Virginia. The stores sell branded and private-label women's clothing (one-fourth of total sales), accessories, children's clothing, cosmetics, home furnishings, and men's clothing. The Grumbacher family, who founded the company in 1898, controls The Bon-Ton.
One of the grand New York department stores that has since gone out of business.
The British Home Stores (BHS) are one of the largest retail chain stoes handling clothing in the United Kingdom. BHS opened its doors for the first time in Brixton in 1928. The highest price of any item sold in the first store was one shilling. From the very beginning BHS stores sold lighting and had self-service cafés and food departments. British Home Stores became a public company in 1931. After the War in 1945, BHC decided price should not be the Company's sole marketing strategy, so BHC introduced a policy of quality and value-for-money that continues today. BHC in 1985 launched a successful overseas program with their first franchise store in Gibraltar. The overseas stores proved very popular and BHC now has franchises in Europe and the Middle East. These outlets mirror the appearance of the UK stores and sell most merchandise ranges. They operate under licence from BHS, but and are not directly owned by the company. BHS in 1986 merged with Habitat/Mothercare to form Storehouse plc. The influence of design had a stronger presence within our merchandise ranges and store design and 'BHS' replaced British Home Stores as the registered company name, reinforced by a new company logo and corporate image. Phillip Green In in May 2000 bought BHS from the Storehouse Group. BHS Ltd is now a private retailer. A reader reports that BHS in 2001 stocked traditional school shorts in sizes up to 13 year olds.
Lane Bryant is a chain store focusing on fashion for larger size women. The store began with a focus on maternity clothes. The founder was Lena Himmelstein Bryant Malsin (1879?-1951), a immigrant from Lithuania. Lane Bryant is the accidental Americanized version of her name which was used for the chain of stores he founded. was an U.S. clothing designer and retailer who founded the maternity clothing chain Lane Bryant. She was born in Lithuania, but raised by her grandparents. She immigrated to America at age 16, the cheapest way possible--in steerage. It was planned that she marry a distant relative, but instead found a job in a swearshop like many immigrant gifrls at the time. She earned $1 a week at a sweat shop on Lispenard Street. She married a jeweler, David Bryant,about 1899.
She worked with him in his modest Brooklyn store. Theirv first child Raphael was born soonafter (1900). Tragically her husband died 6 months after Raphael arrived.
She was left with nothing. She was taken in by her suster Anna who had an l apartment on West 112th St. Rather than return to the sweat shops, she decided to use her talents to make high-end garments. She began making negligees and tea gowns using delicate laces and fine silks to well-to-do customers. From that simple beginning grew one of the major American retail clothing chains. The company deals with women's clothing, but the catalog has offered children's clothing.
One of the largest fashion retailers is the firm C & A Brenninkmeyer. There were in the early 2000s 480 stores with 30,000 employees in 12 countries.
This Dutch company was founded about 120 years ago 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. C&A was also an important retailer in Englad. We have little informatiin on C & A at this time. It was an importrant retailer in the 1980s, but we havevfew details on thevhistory of the company. HBC reader repoorts in 2004 that, "C & A stopped trading in Great Britain
in 2001 or 2002 and consequently all of it's stores were sold. I'm
not sure, but I think it also stopped trading on the continent too."
Colts was a store operating in England and other European countries during the 1960s and 70s. A British merchant reports, "In 1965 I started in Hampstead,
London, a shop called "Colts," which offered a selection of "the world's best casual clothing" for boys of school age. Colts catered solely for boys' leisure wear,
largely imported from France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and the United States.
Co-operative Retail Society Store were impprtant in Britain during the 1910s-30s. I am not sire when they were founded. They were known as "the Coop". Members collected discount stamps on their purchases. This was called the dividend or divy and was a perk of being a member. You became a member by paying a membership fee. Coop shopping is a whole social philosophy. The first Labour Government came into power in the early 1920s. The prime Minister bought new furniture and from the London Co-op Society and had the delivery van take it round to 10 Downing Street. His daughter had Government departments fit out his office becoming of a Prime Minister.
|
A major Frebch clothing retailer is Cyrillus. A French reader tells us, "Cyrillus offered a wide range of high-quality clothes. I wore a lot of their clothes as a boy. My mother bought a lot of Cyrillus clothing for me. One could buy by mail order or in the stores." The company was founded by Danièle Télinge-Joffre in 1977. The name "Cyrillus" comes from the first name of Cyrille, her son. As a mother, she was unable to find the kind of children's clothes she wanted for Cyrille. She decided to create her own mail-order firm for children's clothing. The marketing strategy at first was very targeted and limited to children's clothing. Gradually items for men and women supplemented the catalogue. Cyrillus clothingwas well made and designed to last a long time. As a result, the prices could be perceived as higher than the average. The company expanded quickly.
The 1917 De Pinna Co. catalog wa issued in hard over. De Pinna was an important New York retailer. It was located on 5th Avenue with other exclusive retailers and was the New York branch of an English boys clothing store that was founded in London, 1880, so I presume that the text was written by them.) The catalog advises, "The manly appearance of an English lad is always noticeable. Over there, the
dressing of boys and young men has been standardized for years. There
is lacking in their dress that suggestion of feminine intervention
which has crept at times into the dress of American boys. There is no reason why any good healthy American boy should be decked in ribbons, frills, and laces. There is every reason why he should wear--according to his station in life--clothing and accessories that closely resemble
those of men ..." The text runs on another few pages to tout the
importance of "manly" attire... It is interesting that this word is no longer used in children's fashion ads It certainly was used a lot around the early 1900s! One wonders why the term fell out of favor. Sometimes the changing rhetoric of fashion is just as mysterious as fashion trends themselves. Also note the phrase "good, healthy". There is a psychological implication here. Did men innately regard a boy who is ill or a invalid as more the property of his mother than a "good, healthy" boy? One factor that needs to be considered is that De Pinna was a menswear retailer. Boys were likly to be brought there by their fathers and thus frilly clothes would werelily to hve little clothes. Fancier outfits were more likekly to be found at dress shops which commonly offered clothes for young boys nd department stores. In both these, it would be more likely that boy woul be likely to be bought by their mothers.
The Soviet opened the largest department store in the country specializing in children's goods, like toys, clothes and so on. The store, Detskiy Mir, meant "Children's world" in Russian. It was opened in Moscow during 1957. It proved extremly popular among Soviet shoppers nd was one of the most modern stores in the country. The Soviert Union was not known as a country cattering to consumes.
The popularity of the store meant that it had a great influence on Soviet children's fashion. The store was built on Lubyanskaya square. This is an address known to all Soviet cuitizens. It was next door to the KGB (former NKVD) building which had a notorious prison. Many caught up in the Great Terror and Gulag were first brought here. A Russian reader tells us that the location of Detskiy Mir there was no accident. Chairman Khruschev and Prime Minister Mikoyan were trying to make a name "Lubyanka" (a short name for Lubyanskaya square) less frightening and horrifying to Modscovites after Stalin's death. People strongly associated that Lubyanskaya square with repressions and the secret police. Thus selectuiong the location for the biggest specialized children's department store in Moscow was a step in softening the image of Lubyanskaya square.
This Canadian retailer began publishing mailorder catalogs in 1881, at least that is we begin noticing them. We have catalogs from the 1970s, although we do not know about the company's current status. The 1970s catalgs were full of clothes which look like American styles.
Timothy Eaton, founder of the huge all-Canadian department store chain bearing his name, was an Irish immigrant born on a tennant farm in northern Ireland. He was born in 1834 and followed his brothers to Canada in 1854. His brothers had opened a small dty goods store in St. Marrys. Timothy Eaton began his business with a small
dry goods business in Toronto during 1869. He built a giant retail store in Ontario’s capital city along with a country-wide mail-order business and a big new branch store in Winnipeg, by the time of his death in 1907. The Winnipeg branch was the first of many branches. Eaton Company business establishments eventually spread all across Canada when Timothy’s family successors extended the Eaton empire. Timothy masterminded the company during the crucial period of its early development, spanning nearly 40 years. It was Timothy who implemented the concept of the "Department Store", in Canada, a concept which were already flourishing in London, Paris, and New York.
Chicago was the largest and most prominent Midwestern city. It was thus understandable that several important Midwestern department stores developed in the city. Among the most important is Marshall Field's. The store was founded by Potter Palmer in 1852. Palmer was
one of Chicago's great 19th century entrepreneurs. He opened a small dry goods store on Lake Street which at the time was Chicago's prime retail strip. He soon established his reutation among Chicaho stores through his innovative retailing appraoch, in particular a liberal return as well as easy credit policies. Palmer eventually sold his store to two young merchants, including the ambitious Marshall Field. Palmer pursued real estate development--especially the improvement of State Street. He wanted to transform State Street into an imposing shopping corridor that would make an international name for Chicago. Palmer in 1868 built a palatial sbuilding on the northeast corner of Washington and State
and convinced Field to move his store into the new State Street building.
Les Galeries Lafayette is sometimes referred to as the Louvre of department stores. It carries over 75,000 brand names, and welcomes (in the loosest sense) the equivalent of the entire population of Paris each month. Concessions run from Yohji Yamamoto to Gap. The menswear department has recently been given a make over and is now one of the largest in Europe. Also look for enormous departments dedicated to lingerie (an entire floor), beauty products, kitchenwares, books, records, home furnishings and even souvenirs. The two sixth floor restaurants offer panoramic views; Café Sushi is in adjoining Lafayette Maison.
Gimbles is another of the most fabled American department stores. Not only because of its history, but because of the classic Americam film--Miracle on 34th Street. America's most renowned and certainly tallest shopping mile is located in New York. The area spans 25 blocks, anchored at one end by Macy's on Herald Square and at the other by Bloomingdale's on 59th Street, span five avenues west to east and include the country's most renowned concentration of grand, historic department stores. Actually a half-dozen of these great American stores survive. They are now widely spaced between hundreds of specialty stores on and off Fifth Avenue. Gimble's did not become a majpr chain like some of its compeitors. Several Gimble's ads are archived on HBC. An example is a 1919 ad for a dimitry dress.
The company operates or franchises some 450 stores in Italy that sell apparel, accessories, and home furnishings. The Coin Group operates several different chains. Its stores include Coin, Kaufhalle, and Standa (department stores), Oviesse (discount stores), and Bimbus (children's wear). Its Sirema and Manifatture di Fara subsidiaries make clothes. The company doubled in size with its 1998 purchase of the Standa chain. Coin has a joint venture with French department store operator Pinault-Printemps-Redoute to run Fnac book, record, and electronics stores in Italy. Vittorio Coin founded the company in 1916. It went public in 1999 but is still controlled by the Coin family.
The GUM Department Store is the most famous store in Russia. It has a prestigious location on Red Square. It was particilarly notable during the Soviet era because it was reasonably well stocked at a time when retail stores in the Soviet Union were very poorly stocked and quality consumer goods were not widel;y available. Today GYM is still a lengend in modern Russia, but there are a wide variety of retail stores in the major cities and modern shopping malls.
Harods is perhaps the most prestigious department store in the United Kingdom, if not the world. Countless tourist who visit London regard a shopping spree to Harrods as an important part of their vacation. They have a huge schoolwear section and provide the uniform for ennumeral English schools.
We have not yet found a detailed history of Herrschners. It seems to be another retail store that began with a young immigrant plying a push cart. In this case it was Frederick Herrschner in Chicago. He sold sewing notions (late-19th cebtury). He seems to have developed a strong reputation with his clients. Chicago was the major city in the Midewest. According to the company, people who bought from Herrschner in Chicago wrote to him from various places in the Midwest where they moved seeking items that they had trouble finding in their new communities. This gave Frederick the idea that launched the company: he would develop a catalog and sell his merchandise to those who had no other outlet for the quality goods he provided. Herrschner hit on the idea of launching a catalog opoeration (1899). It was a more limited operation than the mail order giants like Sears and Wards. Herrschner did not offer a little of everything in a massive catalog. According to the company, they offered 'Art needlework and fancy wear for women and children'. Here the focus was on younger children. We do not have a complete understanding of the product line over time, but we see the company offering a extensive line of women's and children's clothing (1920s). Gradually they evolved into a craft line. Unlike Wards and Sears, the company is still in business since launching. Herrschner worked from various Chicago locations until passing away (1929). The businesss was sold, but remained in Chicago (until 1970). As there was no actual retail store, there was no need to reamin in Chicago with its high overhead costs. The company was moved to Stevens Point, Wisconsin where it continues to operate.
Higbee's was located in Cuyahoga County which means Cleveland, Ohio. It is a good example of the many department stores located throughout the United States that were important regionally. Higbee's was one of the best known department stores in Cleveland. It was on Public Square in downtown. Along with Halle's and the May Company, they were the big retail force. An example of a Higbee's ad offered a tennis outfit in 1977. Dillard's bought Higbee's I believe in the 1980s and closed the downtown store. All Higbee's stores are now Dillard's. The downtown store was where the department store scene in the movie,"Christmas Story" was shot.
This major U.S. department store was also a major mail order company.
We note a catalog form the Grand magasins Jelmoli. Grand magasins Jelmoli has for many years been the flagship department store chain of Switzerland. I think it was founded about 1860, but do not yet have actual details. We do not yet know who founded the school. The company has always been headquartered in Zurich. It had branches throughout Switrzerland, but a few years back it sold or closed all its branches and only kept its flagship store in Zurich. I would say it was always an "up-scale" department store. The catalog-department was a very small part of their operations and the catalogs carried a very small amount of merchandise, compared to what was available in their stores.
We do not know when they began publishing catalogs, but we note catalogs from the 1930s and 40s. We have loaded pages from the catalog on the Swiss 1938 catalog page.
They discontinued the catalog-sales sometime in the 1960s. Now they have a very limited web-sales department. I would say that the store in Zurich is still the most prestigious department-store in Zurich and it is located right near the Bahnhofstrasse which is one of the worlds foremost and exclusive shopping-streets.
John Lewis is one of the of the United Kingdom's best known companies. Most people who have experienced JLP as customers will have already appreciated that
this organisation is different. Geraldine started by explaining the all important cultural climate that predominates throughout the group in particular the 23 department stores where she is responsible for training. This culture is in part driven by the partnership ethos; everyone is a shareholding partner in the business and everybody is referred to as a partner, the word employee is not used.
K-mart is a major discount store in the United States. They carry a large selection of children's stores. I first remember seeing K-mart stores in the 1960s. They are located throughout the United States, although they have lost ground to Wal-Mart in recent years. K-Mark declared bankruptsy in 2002. There was much hand-ringing within the company as to just what mistakes they have made. Most K-Mart customers knew that one of the orimary reasons was poor service. Retailers that make customers wait in long lines to check out show that they have little regard for their customers.
This page is from the Kaufhaus des Westens catalog in 1913, just before World War I. Das "Kaufhaus des Westens" (or KaDeWe" for short in Berlin slang) is an early department store (if not the earliest one in Germany or Berlin). The store still exists and is now part of Karstadt-Quelle group. It is located
in the western shopping area of Berlin near Kurfürstendamm, Kranzler-Eck with a famous Cafe - now out of business -, Bahnhof Zoo, and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche. During the Cold War it was in the the Western Sector the centre of the city (like for New Yorkers Fifth Avenue). It is a very big store. It was founded by a Jewish merchant. And since the NAZI era has had a difficult history. It was first sold to non-Jewish relatives to avoid the Araynization laws. Nevertheless it was confiscated by the NAZIs. After World War II it was sold by a government agency to Karstadt. Ther are still currently court proceedings aimed at compensate the relations of the original family owners.
Here the German state and Karstadt disagree over who is responsible. The store for people living in Berlin is an important city symbol like the Brandenburger Tor (during the Cold War border between East and West), the Tiergarten, the Kurfürstendamm and the socalled Kranzler-Eck, or the former castle in the East (during the DDR after war damages totally destroyed, now under strong consideration fore rebuilding).
We note a page from the 1913 catalog offering Leibchen.
Karstadt Quelle was formed by a merger between the country's biggest department store group, Karstadt, and leading mail-order firm, Quelle. It is best known for about 210 Karstadt and Hertie department stores, but it also runs about 200 specialty stores, including Runners Point (sports apparel), Wehmeyer (apparel), and World of Music. Karstadt Quelle is also a leader in travel services (Thomas Cook AG, a joint venture with Lufthansa) and runs online shopping site My-World. Schickedanz-Holding, owned by the Riedel and Herl families, once owned all of Quelle and now has a 48 percent stake in Karstadt Quelle.
Littlewoods Mail Order is the leading mail order company in the UK. The company was founded in 1923, but only later baegan marketing clothes. American companies began mail order marketing in the the 1870s, but mail order companies developed later in Europe, presumably because most customers were closer to retail shops than was the case in the United States. Littlewoods are still producing catalogues, and past issues provide a wonderful record of evolving styles and fashions in British clothing, household things, and sports goods. While Littlewoods not have the long history of a company like Sears or Montgomery Wards, their catalogs are a useful record of evolving styles beginning with the 1930s. Littlewoods was the largest private company in Brotain. The reclusive billionaire Barclay brothers in 2002 put up £750m to take control of the Littlewoods stores and home shopping businesses.
Lord & Taylor is perhaps America's oldest retail store. It traces its roots back to the 1820s, although it was far from a department store in those early years. While the Ne York stores along 6th Avenue served the middle-class and working-class commuters who used the 'El,' the 5th Avenue stores catered to the wealthier clientele of the "carriage trade." Samuel Lord and George Taylor, two English immigrants, combined to build one of the most respected fashion establishments along the more upscale retailers. Their first store was on Catherine Street store. The partners began attracting the New York "carriage trade" (high-class customers who could afford carriages) in 1826. The store moved three times. Each move followed the northward march of the New York's fashionable retailers and the grand buildings that shoppers came to expect from a top-line department store. The Grand and Chrystie streets store opened in 1853 had a domed central rotunda and cathedral windows. The Broadway building in 1872 was one of New York's first cast-iron frame buildings and had a steam elevator. incredibly featuring chandeliers and a plush couch! Speculating that the retail district would expand east, they built their third department store at the corner of 20th Street. The store was moved moved for a final time in 1914 to 38th Street and 5th Avenue. The rather unimposing granite and limestone building is not as striking as the earlier stores, but more utilitarian. The store is famous for its Christmas windows depicting the holiday season through the years. The flagship Lord & Taylor store stands fully 10 stories high in New York and is a far cry from all the Lord & Taylor chain stores established elsewhere in America. In 2000 there were 78 Lord & Taylor stores in America. The store itself as a corporate entity has been absorbed by the St. Louis-based May Department Stores. The flagship Lord and Taylor store in New York was sold to a realty company when Federated absorbed May Department Stores.
Au Louvre is 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. I'm not sure precisely when it was founded.
Onr source reports rather obliqly that Le Louvre dates to the time of the extension of the rue de Rivoli under the Second Empire. The Second Empire or the Imperial regime of Louis Napleon dates to about (1850-70). We know that it was an important Paris department store operating in the 1880s. At the time, au Bon Marché was its' major competitor. Le Louvre in 1893 had sales of 120 million francs and reported a profit of 6.3 per cent. It continues to be a major Paris store. Many American that visit Paris shop here, much as they do at Harrods when they visit London.
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing catalog/magazine pages:
[Return to the Main retail store page]
[Return to the Main store page]
[Fashion magazines and store page]
[Main photo/publishing page]
[Fashion magazines]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Introduction]
[Activities]
[Biographies]
[Chronology]
[Clothing styles]
[Countries]
[Bibliographies]
[Contributions]
[FAQs]
[Glossaries]
[Images]
[Links]
[Registration]
[Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]
Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Sailor suits]
[Sailor hats]
[Buster Brown suits]
[Eton suits]
[Rompers]
[Tunics]
[Smocks]
[Pinafores]
