Rising up throughout the mid-20th century, I recall when the spot to store for clothing was at the downtown division shop with it’s intricately hand painted Manikins in the entrance window.
Aside from the well-identified chain suppliers like Montgomery Ward and Penney’s, Vancouver, Washington was served by a locally owned outdated standby CC’s Department Keep. CC’s was the variety of retail outlet that shut on Sundays and was known for their “greater” merchandize.
CC’s was just about a museum even by 1940’s and ’50’s requirements. Shabbily genteel and fairly dowdy it had creaking bare wood flooring, vast picket staircase and substantial ceilings, but what genuinely produced CC’s stand a portion from other downtown Vancouver outlets was how order transactions were attained.
When customers built a invest in in CC’s the clerk handling the transaction place the funds into a steel container the dimension of a soup can and despatched it along with a sale voucher, sailing by electronic wire to a next ground central cashier. The cashier created change and returned the transaction in the identical method to the clerk so that she could near out the sale with your receipt.
CC’s is the only retail store I bear in mind shopping in that handled their “cash only” transactions in this fashion. Grandma was a normal shopper at CC’s and she chose the store specifically for their variety of matching Cinderella brand name dresses for my sister and me. I recall procuring for back to college and Easter garments there as well.
In all those day women “dressed” for downtown purchasing expeditions and prospects like my grandmother realized the store’s clerks by identify. This was a time when there was personalised support was the norm. Figuring out what grandma favored to acquire for us, clerks sometimes held back again Cinderella dresses in our measurements for her to arrive in and pick out from.
Aside from purchasing dresses for my more youthful sister and me, grandma at times would purchase an outfit and hat for herself. CC’s carried a fantastic line of women’s hats. In these days, hats and gloves were being a person of the ideals of femininity and a ought to for Sunday church attendance.
Standing on a corner of Most important Road, CC’s was a significant portion of downtown Vancouver. It was also element of a far more courteous era, an era when every day shopping was substantially far more formal. Men and women dressed up, rode the bus and took their time searching while the retail store merchandize. If you went into a shop, the proprietors chatted with you and wanted you to shell out some time. It was all portion of the area taste of a bygone era.