POLL: Gays and Department Stores

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Having a full-time job at a nice department store used to be a decent career. Growing up, I had a relative and knew a friend of the family who had careers in retail and they made good livings out of these jobs. One worked for Bullock's in Southern California and the other at Meier & Frank in Portland, Oregon. Some people don't know this, but Meier & Frank used to be so full-service that you could call them up, discuss your needs and they'd deliver goods to you in their distinctive green delivery wagons/trucks, not unlike Amazon today.

But back in the day, I'm sure this type of career path was attractive to a lot of gay men, because on some level, it could be seen as a sort of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" job -- trying to help those poor heterosexuals improve their fashion sense and home furnishing choices with expert advice.

The Datalounge Department Store, of course.

You left off Nordstrom, my store of choice. RUDE! LOL

Printemps ey Le Bon Marche shurely.

I miss EATON's prior to the 1980s

No one is interested in your boring life story, r2.

I make my own clothes.

OP, you list Burlington and Ross, but no Bloomingdale's? How low rent.

R9 I know my audience. Most of Datalounge has never been within fifty miles of a Bloomie's, and couldn't afford to shop at one if they ever had.

Like the Dalai Lama said: the closing of Barneys is one of the greatest tragedies of mankind.

the china department

Ground floor - perfumery.

Marshall Fields, please.

Only Buffums for me!

Bambergers!

No love for Jordan March, OP?

Oh dear, r17.

Don't know about these days, but there was a time when Target seemed to be a magnet for young gay bois to work at.

Dancing kweens in the store ....

Bergdorf Goodman Forever

R14 I’m with you. Frango Mints for everyone!

There’s a wonderful book, “Through Charley’s Door” by Emily Kimbrough (of “Our Hearts Were Young and Gay”) about working in the advertising department there in the 20s.

I worked in the advertising department of the original Emporium Department Store on Market St., San Francisco, in the 70s and 80s. Production and layout artist.

It was heaven! Gays galore, I made lifetime friends. There is a group of us (photographers, layout artists, writers etc) who still get together several times of year. The stories and memories never end. Alas, my lost youth. We're dying off already.

The advertising offices in the 70s were unchanged from the 1940s. Some of the staff were, too. It was old school and awesome. Later, the building was gutted and reconfigured as some worthless retail center that was horribly designed, partially blocking the glorious stained glass cupola. An outrage to antiquity. Westfield center or something? It's already out of business along with the Bloomingdales that went in there. Not sure what comes next.

My true favorite was The City of Paris department store on Union Square, across from Macy's. It still has it's stained glass cupola which honors the original French founders who imported goods from France starting from the Gold Rush. It's Neiman Marcus now. Over-priced but with a nice restaurant with a good view of the cupola and annual Christmas tree.

I was fired from Macy's Herald Square on Christmas Eve in the early 2000s.

No Phipp's???

[quote] It still has it's stained glass cupola which honors the original French founders who imported goods from France starting from the Gold Rush.

Thanks, r22. I’d seen that for years and never knew what it was and why it was designed that way.

[quote] I was fired from Macy's Herald Square on Christmas Eve in the early 2000s.

For reasons well known to you, R23.

No Gimbels?

No Grace Brothers when I'm FREEEE....?

r23=Edmund Gwenn

Takashimaya was my favorite store inNYC. until it closed in 2010.

Caldor

O!hrbach's!

r2, ignore r7.

I enjoyed reading your post. It took me back to an era that's gone and ain't coming back

On there way to the caftan department...

It was possible to make a decent living until they phased out commissioned salespeople at most stores.

Employees of the big downtown department stores used to put on musicals, but not for the general public. I worked with women who had been chorus girls on Broadway in their youth (this was when I lived in Cleveland and worked Christmases at Higbees). It was not unusual to find people who moonlighted in theater or even as male go-go dancers. There were competitions between stores for their musicals—I forget where these would occur.

When retailers actually merchandised their stores, there was a lot of style and gay men were a big part of it, not so much as buyers but as window dressers and sales people. Some high end stores like Garfunkel’s in DC had gay owners, but the business side seemed very straight.

I laugh when people say nice things about Dillard, I mean Dullards. They gutted the service and range of merchandise when they took over old line chains like Higbees and Stix in St. Louis.

THEIR!!!

I was caught between Woodward & Lothrop and Spiegel's.

Jesus, how old are you queens? Most of these independent stores closed down forty years ago.

Love your descriptions/comments on the stores in your poll, OP!

I used to love Macy's in LA becuase they had a specific store just for men, not some tiny little section. BUT, Macy's has gone way down hill the last 10 years so, higher prices with lower quality. Have not been to any department store in years. Pretty much Amazon or direct online shopping.

[quote]Jesus, how old are you queens?

Sorry, OP, we didn't know your thread had an age limit.

I browsed at Macy's but I ***shoplifted*** at Alexander's!

R42 I whacked off at Marshall Field's, but I smoked until I set the curtain department on fire at Woolco!

Jordan Marsh

What are we, chopped liver?

BDSM

Bloomingdale’s

Dillards

Saks

Macy’s

Levity ensues in gift wrap...

Bardwell's. The ladies working gift wrap were hilarious.

Gay + Department Store=

No Lord & Taylor?

Harvey Nichols

I cruis…I’m sorry, I loved, shopping at Lord & Taylor. That was my vibe!

This just in: Macy's has now overtaken Saks in the poll.

Is this current-day corporate Macy's, or are we only thinking of the original Midtown location?

Raymart

Which store had the best salesbottoms?

DL tennis fave Taylor Fritz is the "great-great-grandson of David May, founder of The May Department Stores Company."

[quote]Which store had the best salesbottoms?

R25, I didn't know it either until recently. We dined at the Rotunda Restaurant (I guess the windows are rotundas, not cupolas) last Christmas. Remembering the old City of Paris I looked up the history and was surprised how fascinating it was. I loved that store as a child. So magical!

I. Magnin was a great store, too. Very elegant. I do miss those old stores. And of course the roof rides at Christmas at the old Emporium. I hope you got to experience those stores, too.

R38, old enough to have fabulous memories and experiences that live like sparkling jewels in our aging brains.

May your memories be as fine and rich as hours when you inevitably get to a wrinkled ancient decrepit age, unless you croak young, of course.

I like very much the old metal shoe horn I have which is marked, “The Emporium, San Francisco.” I sometimes wonder if it was ever used on Herb Cain.

Part of me died with Barney’s

It's a sad poll selection. For me the big national chains never had any appeal, excepting maybe Neiman-Marcus which seemed to stand for generally higher quality and took care with presentation.

More interesting than the national stored were the often long-established department store brands specific to a city: Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, Garfinckel's, Henri Bendel, Barney's, B. Altman. But the point is less about quality or cost than identity. You knew that if you wanted s good business shirt, X was the place; but another store for the best selection of ties that you liked, another if you wanted a desk lamp, another if you were one of those hay dinnerware queens, another had the most luxurious towels, one even had a decent place for a lunch chicken salad.

All the rest might as well have been mall anchor stores in nowhere. Macy's was never anything but a big department store, and the it became nationally big and a bigger nothing.

Bergdorf Goodman

[quote]I like very much the old metal shoe horn I have which is marked, “The Emporium, San Francisco.” I sometimes wonder if it was ever used on Herb Cain.

CAEN.

Herb Caen was an old bitch. Read him every day of course, but he had a reputation.

How cute that every AI image from the link in R3 has migrated into this thread. It’s easier to just read the original thread.