Where did you buy your clothes growing up? (grandparents, grown up, grandpa)

[LoriNJ]

When we were younger, our Mom made a lot of our clothing. And yes, she liked to make my younger sister and me matching outfits, sometimes in different colors, but otherwise the same patterns. We also got a lot of handmedowns from our cousins. Mom was also big into rummage sales and the Salvation Army. We got some really cool outfits from rummage sales. Shoes were always new, though, and came from Thom McCan, Buster Brown, Baker's and Becks'.

When we were a little older, she started taking us into "the City" (New York) to Gimbels (NEVER Macy's!) a few times a year. We loved the clearance racks at Gimbels! We also got some clothing from Alexander's and Korvette's. My older sister loved the Rainbow Shop and bought a lot of her clothes there.

In my teen years, I saved my money from babysitting and housekeeping jobs and shopped at "hippie" stores like the Olive Garden in Hackensack. That's where I got my peasant blouses and pants with HUGE bell bottoms. Anyone remember Land Lubber jeans? I loved them. There was also a cheapie store called Valley Fair where I could afford some cheap shoes and shirts, but in general, their clothes weren't very good or stylish.

[NeutralZone]

Originally Posted by Sand&Salt

Interesting! I didn't know they were chain stores. I grew up in Orange County, so these stores were either in Orange or Tustin, maybe Santa Ana. All those towns flow together! And the outdoor malls back then:
Fashion Square, South Coast Plaza...I can't remember the others' names.

We didn't care about dressing alike when we were young. I guess we thought it was cute, mostly for photos but sometimes for relative get-togethers. There were 4 of us in descending order with the same dresses, lol. So funny to look at now.

Buffum’s had stores at Westminster Mall, Fashion Island in Newport Beach, and in Santa Ana ( they had other locations, but these were in Orange County). Bullock’s was at South Coast Plaza ( I worked there in college), Santa Ana, Mission Viejo Mall, and La Habra. There was a Bullock’s Wilshire at Fashion Island near Buffum’s.

[josie13]

We got back-to-school outfits at Sears when we weren't in parochial school. In parochial school, the uniforms made everything so much easier. My mom bought socks and underwear for us from Sears, and then we picked out the right size uniforms in a special room right there on campus. I'm pretty sure most of the pieces were secondhand.

In parochial school, we wore plain leather shoes, lace-up or T-strap. In public school, we wore Keds or PF Flyers.

One regular feature of my childhood was big paper sacks of hand-me-downs from neighbors and people in our parish. Mostly they were full of T-shirts and Levis 501s and cords, all of which I wore happily along with my brothers and sisters after pants were finally allowed on girls in school.

Inside those paper sacks, sometimes, were fabulous girls' hand-me-downs from the 1960s with labels from I. Magnin and Joseph Magnin and Bullock's. The swag included gold velvet and green velvet minidresses, gorgeous Mexican peasant minidresses with hand embroidery, beautiful kilts with big gold pins, suede boots, and cashmere sweaters. Courrèges and Mary Quant knockoffs. My favorite dress was a sleeveless shift in a crisp white cotton pique that looked fabulous with a tan.

I guess all the fun stuff came from affluent neighbor teens who discarded their former Sixties finery when they took off for college in jeans and blue workshirts and Earth shoes. LOL.

[NW4me]

In HS, I insisted on genuine Levi's.... anything else wasn't the real deal.
Don't remember as clearly where I bought them... perhaps Penny's;
they had a store in our town. Later on a more with-it clothing shop
called Jeans West came along... I probably shopped there.

[arr430]

When my parents first moved to town together to our small town

(1933) they rented an apartment above a Main Street men's wear store (The Hub), and established loyalty there for Dad and myself, which peraisted until my HS graduation. Lee jeans daily, year to year; two pair every September. Everything, even gym socks. For Mom and my sister, it was mostly the two-story Penney's, a few doors down the street from The Hub. Nothing ever mail-ordered. Penney's had those little trolleys overhead where cash and receipts were shuttled.

[Ted Bear]

Sykes Store, Steventown NY. Probably nothing else in the world , certainly the USA, like it.

Back-Up was Delsons, in Chatham, NY.

Sykes might still exist. Delsons has gone to the great department stores (don't even think it is like anything you know!) in the sky.

[jtab4994]

Hmm, let's see. In West Orange, NJ there was a Men's store in town called Gruber's. At the mall there was Hahne's (now Lord & Taylor) and Bamberger's (rebranded as Macy's in the 1980's). In downtown Newark there was S. Klein and Two Guys (both defunct). My mom used to buy our shoes at a local store in East Orange called Wuensch's. Lots of stores closed in the years following the Newark riots and sadly the suburban malls became the place to go.

When I got into high school I started asserting my own taste and personally shopped at a local Men's store called Wallach's, and B. Altman, Bonwit Teller, whatever was on Fifth Avenue in NYC. All defunct now except maybe Lord & Taylor and Macy's.

[Rabflmom]

I think we all have different stores for the age bracket we were in. Until I was a teen, mom bought my clothes. Most of the time it was from an independent store(Politz) that a friend owned or Penney's in my little farmng hometown. It was quality clothes. She also ordered a lot of our Sunday dresses from Spiegal catalog. When we went to the nearest town North she shopped mostly at Alden's, Sears or Samuels sales basement. If we went South we saw Santa and shopped at Goldblatz I think-not sure of the name. Almost forgot.....the Jewel Tea Man came to our house 2 times a month. He got to know mom and he would bring his dress samples in our size-always blue for me and red for my sister.( there were 11 kids in the family and we were the "babies "so spoiled by even the big sisters) The dresses were cute, too.

As a teen Penney's had a great junior petite department and Esther Williams -our neighbor not the star-opened a shop that sold the teen brands like Bobby Brooks so a lot of my clothes came from there.

Then when I was in college I would go to my sister's and buy my fall clothes-mostly Bobby Brooks at Hechts.

When I was teaching and on my own, I moved up to Carson Pierre Scott and Marshall Fields, but the first year teaching I went to K-Mart the week before school started and bought 10 dresses to wear. I loved those dresses! I wore them for several years.

Now it is boring Kohls. But no other store can beat an alumni discount.

[coschristi]

Toughskin jeans from Sears, lol & we shopped at JC Penny's.We had a local downtown dept store in Colorado Springs called Hibbards & Co. They had one of those old fashioned elevators with an operator; I loved going there. My mom sewed a LOT of our clothes as well. We were in the fabric stores more than we were in the dept stores.

Always Stride-Right shoes, from a shoe store downtown. I was so tall I unfortunately grew out of children's size shoes in the 3rd grade. I hated the "lady sized shoes".

When my mom started going crunchy, our clothes all had to be 100% natural fibers so more sewn or mail order stuff. Finally, when I was a teenager, I got to buy some of my stuff from the mall; joy!

[mshultz]

Originally Posted by Tallysmom

My feet were the bane of my mothers existence. No, actually that would be her feet. Mine weren’t much better. My shoes were purchased at the striderite shop. I was difficult to fit with a wide forefoot and a slimmer heel. And my mother and father believed that shoes had to fit well or your kid’s foot would get deformed, so there was no growing into the next size. Pretty much because my foot was bad enough as it was they didn’t need it to get worse.

Stride rite sold more dress shoe style, like school shoes sort of thing. Other than that I was in Keds or barefoot.

My mother did sew, but she really only liked to make fancy little foofoo dresses so my regular clothes pretty much I think was Penney’s. That was the biggest mid range department store around us. My dad used to call it our French tailor — J C Pennyay.

When I reached about sixth or seventh grade, that’s when she started taking me other places for shoes. Since I was wearing a wide shoe, department stores often didn’t carry wide shoes for kids young teens. So I never went to Kinny’s, or Baker’s, they never had wide shoes. But they sure had pretty shoes.

But for clothing, when I was a young teen there were plenty of stores at the mall with very well priced clothes for that age range. I don’t even remember the names for them but I went into all sorts of places to buy clothing. But the one thing my mother was very strict on was when you got home from school you took off your school clothes and you hung them up if they were still clean enough to wear again, or do you put them in the hamper so they could be washed. And then you got into the house clothes or play clothes. I still wear scuzzy house clothes when I’m doing scuzzy house work.

Shoes for me were a problem too, for the same reason. The shoe salesmen would fit the Hush Puppies to my heels, leaving the toes so tight that my little toes would create a bulge. One of the salesmen even suggested there was something wrong with my feet. I would be in agony after buying new shoes until the shoe had stretched out around my toes. I was too young to realize the shoe salesmen had no idea what they were doing. I make sure my shoes have plenty of room around the toes now, and shoe salesmen are not part of the process.