• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Womens in town

C

carole-fordy

Guest
:)I wonder how many of you Ladies out there remember shopping in Chelsea Girl or C&A in town. I loved the sales at C&A loads of bargains to be had, and Henry's.
 
Womens In Town ??

:grinsmile:WOMENS SHOP'S I MEANT, HUSBAND YACKING TO ME !!! SORRY.
 
Shops in town.

:grinsmile: I used to use the C@A in the early 60's. Couldn't resist itin my lunchbreak. I used to work for a short while at Sumlock Comptometer in Ford street just across the road. :grinsmile: Bye. Jean.
 
I loved chelsea girl I got a lovely jumper from there, and every time my mom washed and dried it I would put it back on, I bet people thought that I hadn't got any other jumpers.
 
I was a regular at C&A on Corporation Street and when I came home with an empty suitcase from Canada for a visit with my family in Birmingham I would go to the sales. My father bought me a coat with fake fur trim around the bottom...like a Russian style and it had a fake fur collar which looked lik silver fox. I gave it away two years ago. It was quite long and went through all the fasion phases very well. I also still own a velvet suit in a rich brown that I bought the same year 1972.

My Mother loved C&A and always wrote and told me of her sale purchases, etc. from that shop. There was a couple of other women`s shops...one of which is still going today...but I`ll be darned if I can remember their names.I used to shop in Henry`s since they had a lot of `job lot`one offs at
excellent prices in the women`s dresses and suit lines. I always liked shopping all over Brum in those days.
 
C&A

The clothes that were made for C&A in those days were of a good quality, so well made that they would cost a few pounds more these days.
I would shop there quite often, we always called it Coat and Hat or At.
Happy days. I occasionally shopped at Jaegar which i think was next door..........................Cat :)
just remembered i bought lots of hats from there, i love hats, and have just found out that it runs in the family from way back down the line to present day.:)
 
C&A

When I lived in Birmingham I used to buy my (gents) business suits from C&A. They were always terrific value. Not long after I moved to Leeds, C&A decided to close all their UK shops and they had a closing down sale. Absolutely everything really had to go.
I went into their Leeds branch looking for a suit and it was like a street fight in there. It made a Next sale look like a church tea party. There were clothes on hangers, off hangers, on the floor, hanging over doors, piled up on chairs and nothing was on its correct rack - ladies and gents clothes all mixed up together. Men and women were swearing and scrapping over particularly good bargains.
I eventually found the jacket of a suit that I liked, but where were the trousers? Nearly all the suits had been split up as people tried on the jackets and then threw them on the floor if they didn't fit. I hunted high and low. Asking an assistant was useless, they had no idea either, and had really given up, as they would be out of a job next week. Eventually I found two pairs of the trousers on the floor under some jumpers and, fortunately one of them was my size. I went to the till to pay. C&A used to price their suit jackets and trousers separately - the jacket was reduced to £15 but there was no price ticket on the trousers. I assumed they would be something like the same. The assistant couldn't get the till to accept the bar code off the trousers, so he just gave them to me - so I got a really good suit for £15 - in fact, I've still got it - just doesn't fit any more, but I'm hoping it might do again one day.
 
What's in a name? In the early 1960s there were C&A shops in Holland and Germany which used the same logo, but generally with the owner, Brenninkmeyer before it. There are still plenty of shops in Germany using the C&A name which sell good stuff at fair prices.
Peter
 
Many moons ago ( No Pom, not That many) I met a new girlfriend and we decided to meet in Town the next day. She said she would meet me at Oasis, I think it was in Dale End .
I duly arrived the next day and hung around for a while, then decided to see if she had perhaps gone inside.
Once in there it was like being taken into some sort of Casbah, the air was thick with the smoke of many sorts of "Wacky Backy" that everybody seemed to be smoking.
The place itself was a labrynth of stalls selling some of the wierdest clothes I'd ever seen.
I thought, this is no place for a bloke like me and tried to find the way out, and all the time I was getting higher and higher from the fumes I was being forced to ingest.
After about 3 hours I eventually found myself back in the real world and immediately thought about going back in to Oasis, but instead I wandered happily back home.
Oh, and the new girlfriend ? sadly never saw her again in my life, although I did go back to Oasis to look for her, quite often. :stare:
 
Peter Walker is quite right about Germany and its clothing you cannot get clothing in this country as good as the clothes made in Germany, unless of course they specialise in shops here,:crying: i only know of one shop and that's in Torquay..........Cat
 
I shopped at the C & A store in Calais last year. The prices are still good - even in euros!
 
I remember C & A's from the late 60's & also Oasis in the 70's......oooh what a store eh?? The smells & sights of that shop!!!! Anyone remember the Chelsea Girl on High St, sort of opposite Marks & Sparks (in the 70's) where girls would sit up in suspended baskets keeping a look out for shoplifters??
 
One dress shop I liked and bought a lot of clothes from in the late 1950s/60s was McConvilles in Bull Street, it was near Kendalls and they sold really attractive mackintoshes (old fashioned word now) plus umbrellas etc.
 
Sylvia: I remember McConvilles shop in Bull Street and Kendalls as well. For the past two days I have been trying to think of a shop on Corporation Street ..it was a chain and is still in business as far as I know. They always hung their dresses in the same style and colour together on one rail. It will come to me eventually. Do you remember the Chanel shop on New Street. I only went in there when sales were on.
 
I remember the Chanel shop in New Street, my friends and I used to by little angora mix dresses there for £3 - they were lovely. Couldn't afford to buy anything else from them though! Also we used to shop at Wallis which was in Corporation Street, but sometimes if you looked through the rails at C&A you could see identical copies of Wallis clothes at a lot less money. There was also Richards on New Street nearly opposite the Odeon. Both Richards and Wallis are still going today.
 
Whats all this rattle about shops and things are you BRAwimin trying to Hog the Forum?:stressed:.
Good Job I have a couple of BARmen interjecting ( not such a big word) for us BARmen like Postie & Day19390 (I never gave him his name) all would be lost on a chilly Friday morning in Suffolk.

Personally I don't go to Womens shops why, because I might be seen right. I go to Starbucks just to check on their prices so that when Coffee comes down to 20p again I nip in and get one, also the Sandwich Shop and when I can get Bacon & Sausage Dips I'll be straight in again like I last did in 1968.
So BARmen take power again to teach these BRAwimin a lesson.

PS we will be alright till GRACE comes back.:stare:
 
Thanks Judy39. The name I was trying to think of and remember was Wallis:smile2: I bought a lot of clothes from Wallis and used to rush there often with
money from my weekly wage packet to look for something to wear to
dances, etc. Thanks again.
 
:)There were also more "upmarket" places like Wilsons , & Hiltons in high street, & I did buy a lovely Poncho from the Co-op though it does remind me of Clint Eastwoods when I think about it now:shocked:
 
I shopped in C & A, Marks and Sparkes, Wallis, Richards, Greys. I remember McConvilles, but not sure I ever went in. I did buy a dress and jacket from a shop in New Street just below the Theatre Royal, it was a corner shop, might have been the corner of one of the arcades. Anyway that frock lasted me for donkeys years, so the arm and leg it cost me was worth it.:rolleyes:
 
There was also the upmarket Marshall & Snelgrove in New Street. Probably the fashions were too old and much too pricey but I didn't ever buy anything from there. I did, however, have a make-up lesson there when I was about 15/16!! Guess it must have cost me most of my week's wages, which had probably just been increased to about £3.

There was the original Rackhams which was opposite Lewis's. Just a small corner shop. I had a coat from there one winter.
 
I bought the material for my wedding dress and my bridesmaid dresses from Marshall and Snelgrove, Judy and I was always spellbound by the Lewis's make up lady. She would also 'do' things with scarves, she very deftly wrapped scarves round her neck a dozen different ways, she had a voice like a fog horn as we used to say.
 
Judy39, I remember as a schoolgirl going into Marshall and Snelgoves ground floor make-up area on my lunch hour and watching while ladies were made up with Charles of the Ritz makeup, etc. I always remember the green powder they applied. It was all very mysterious. Later on when I worked in Town I actually had make-up done by Charles of the Ritz. The make-up was session cost nothing but they wanted you to buy their products of course and I came out of the store feeling a little sick when I realized how much I had spent.:D I always thought some of the floors in Marshalls reminded me of the department store featured in Are you Being Served:rolleyes:

Never fear, I got caught by a scarf lady in Rackhams last time I visited a couple of years ago. They use videos mostly for these demos these days and thirteen pounds later I walked out with this very cheaply made scarf
styler, I suppose you would call it. Never used it, of course.
 
Di, my auntie, Evelyn Hanson, used to work on Lewis's make-up counter before the war. I think during the war she went into a factory to help with war work. She definitely wasn't the lady with the fog horn voice. She was a pretty petite little lady with dark brown hair. After the war she got a job as Receptionist at the Grand Hotel, and worked there for many years becoming Head Receptionist.
 
Hi
i rememeber c and a and chelsea girl it was my favourite shop and also richard shops remember that shop? and the shops in martinau square/ theyd a resteraunt there i used to go in with my parents and altho it was no more than a cafe is today it was alwasy so special i recal it being very large with a long flight of stairs down to it. i think it was called macolls.
there was another shop down a side street i cant remember its name or its road name but they sold " coke floats" which was a new thing and it was just ice cream floating in a glass of coke ! happy days.
back in the days i think when ice cream was a real treat.
 
What about the 21 shop belonged to marshall and snelgrove, the entrance was on the side opposite richards. I got most of my mod clothes from there.
 
Yes Patty remember the endless hours us men stood while you tried the latest gear on with our credit cards melting
 
I dont think we had credit cards then did we Alf??? in the 60's, if you had one you must have been very posh
 
Back
Top