When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
And we shopped in stores
Welcome to Life’s Accessories, The Substack newsletter formerly knowns as Real Life with RLL. Do you like the new logo? My husband (a closeted artist) made it for me after a more intense that I thought it would be creative meeting. Pink is way more my color than red ever was.
I recently heard Katie Couric say that storytelling is a public service. BTW, you can listen to Katie Couric’s daughters, Ellie and Carrie Monahan interviewed on episode 28 of Life’s Accessories, the Podcast. I agree with Katie. I think that we can all learn so much from well told stories.
Going forward here on Life’s Accessories, The Newsletter, I will be sharing stories, thoughts (some deep, some not), essays, observations, you name it inspired by brand new episodes of Life’s Accessories, The Podcast. I always come away with interviews and conversations with podcast guests with all this good storytelling energy, which is a real thing, and I want to share all of this with all of you.
Enter Julie Satow
Award winning author and journalist Julie Satow joined me on the first episode of Season Two of the podcast. Her accessory? A letter from 1958 that Julie’s grandmother saved from the iconic department store, Henri Bendel’s. You’ll have to listen to the pod on the player below to learn what this letter is all about. I love a good letter, and I really love a person who saves a good letter (for 65 years!)
Julie wrote this book called When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, which just came out into the world this week. It is a fascinating look at the lives of three women who rose to the top ranks at Lord and Taylor, Bonwit Teller and Henri Bendel’s. These women were power houses in the department store world at a time when women held very few positions of power. As Julie said, the men’s names were on the buildings (The Bloomingdale Brothers, Roland Macy) but it was the women who were running the show behind the scenes. Sound familiar? Julie and I discussed this on the pod — how even 100 years after women ran Fifth Avenue, there is still so much work to do to ensure that women have equity in the workplace.
The Department Store Experience
Julie’s book and our conversation brought me back to the heyday of the American department stores, back to the 20th century when you could seriously spend the entire day at one of these stores. Remember when Mrs. Maisel worked at the makeup counter at B. Altman in the 1950s as shown on Amazon Prime in the 2010s? How good was that?! Remember how dressed up everyone was at those stores? Both the store employees and the store shoppers.
As I write this, I am sitting at my home office desk in 2024 in leggings and a long sleeve cozy waffle shirt, having just shopped for pajama pants on Amazon and sneakers on Zappos. I spent about five minutes tops in each store.
When I was a little girl in the 1980s, I did in fact spend the better part of some days at any one of the department stores that Julie writes about so perfectly and eloquently in her book. The department store was a destination and being there was an event. I remember waiting outside of a department store in New York City for the doors to open up at 10am with my mother, my aunt and my grandmother as we glanced into the store’s windows. After shopping in the store, we had lunch in the restaurant — in the store. I still love a good department store lunch. I say this now eating a granola bar at my desk post ten minutes of online shopping.
A Day to Remember
The last time I ever shopped with my mom was in a department store. It was actually Henri Bendel’s in 2003. My mom was quite sick at the time, but we made the effort to go to the store to get a particular dress. We bought the department store dress, had the department store lunch, and as we were walking around Bendel’s browsing (one of my favorite past times!) we picked up these sparkly barrettes at an accessories counter, which I still wear. I actually wear that department store dress too.
We never would have had that experience online, and we most certainly would not have been able to find these little gems in the form of hair accessories in an online check out situation. I know the algorithms can sometimes get you with “you might like these items for your cart before you check out” but it’s not the same. No one really knows the algorithm that is your own unique style and likes. I know this because Athleta.com thought I would like want to buy an athletic top that is essentially just a bra that you wear outside to exercise. I would never.
I am so glad that I had that day with my mom at Bendel’s. I can see and feel so much of that day in my mind’s eye — walking up the store’s spiral staircase holding my mom’s hand, feeling the softness of the sweaters on display and spending too much time trying on items that we thought would work but ultimately did not. I could not have done that on Amazon. And let me say that I am a big Amazon fan for a whole host of other reasons — adding those scented liquid hand and dish soaps to Subscribe and Save was a personal highlight of my 2021.
I guess all of this to say that after you are finished listening to this new episode of the podcast and reading Julie’s new book, get out there into a real life store for the real life experience of the shop. And as an added bonus perhaps bring a friend or someone you love along with you. I’d be happy to meet you there!