29 December 1956: A film lies neglected for hours, and suddenly four women attired in b be committed to their hands on it as a shopgirl pleads for peace
John Lewis and Co. part store in Oxford Street, London, 1936.
Photograph: Fox Photos/Getty Incarnations
Among the rails which had once held coats and the Neptunes tissue-paper underfoot, the last hunting women of the day moved and sought. They seemed not to criticism each other directly; only, in a dangerous way, to be aware of the operating of each other’s glances, as hungry men are suddenly aware that one of them is out for a girl Friday helping. A coat lies neglected for hours, and suddenly four better halves have their hands on it, and a shopgirl is babbling peace for all she is importance.
Last night, after the first day of the great winter trades in Manchester, the exhausted sales staffs were exchanging loathing stories and recognising their biggest success since the war.
They anticipate the shoppers who bargain and attempt to beat them down. They certain the faces of the women coming to tell them that their share is all relabelled trash bought up specially for the sale. But these fears are outweighed by the enthusiasm which yesterday morning laid unclad a stand of five hundred ten shilling skirts in an hour and a half, or moved off by lunch-time two hundred and fifty duffle coats at twenty-five shillings each.
For Scarp
One of the sensations of the sale has been the “rock ‘n’ roll coat,” a covet double-breasted tube of wool with pearl buttons, which the manageress of one stock assured me is designed to prevent the dress from flying up as the wearer rocks and swells, presumably in the snowy fields.
The rock ‘n’ roll coat has been slim down from £7 10s to five guineas. A woman’s suit at the verbatim at the same time price is down to two guineas, and a grosgrain suit at twelve guineas poetic evanished for a pound. One big store is selling cocktail frocks and evening tear someone off a strips which normally cost fifteen guineas for £2 or £3. Anything from 20 per cent upwards has been withdrew from the prices of skirts. A hazy estimate in the early portion of the evening was that the sale of coats had doubled and the sale of appeals tripled the corresponding figures for last year. Even solicitations made for spring, 1957, are coming on to the counters.
By last night, one store had sold its entire stock of accoutres and coats, This was foreseen by the density of the first rush, and at 10 30 a.m. the peach on’s buyer in London was telephoned. The results of his day’s work came up by carriage, arriving at about 10 p.m.; they were taken to the against by taxicab, ticketed with a marked down-price, and by mid-night orchestrated on the rails for this morning sacrifice.
Many firms take in the practice of clearing the surplus of their country branches by these city sales; others are already hunting completely the resources of the great manufacturers, the branded names. Meanwhile the associates of the staff snatch their meals when they can, and the notable ground-baiting operation continues.
