Galeries Lafayette, Regent St, London (early-mid 1900s)

[Sydenhamer]

And if you want an idea of what life was like there as shop assistant before the war try & get hold of a book by Mrs Robert Henrey called "Julia" published in 1971. (ISBN 0460 039202).

It is part of her long sequence of autobiographical books about her life in London and "Julia" covers her time working in the store for a while in the late 1920s.


Sydenhamer

[Anita9659]

Hello again. By an astonishing coincidence, i was watching a truly dreadful British film from the early 70s on the "Talking Pictures TV" channel, and there was Galeries Lafayette again in glorious Tecnicolor (or the 70s British equivalent). If you can track it down, the film is called "Cool it, Carol" and the sequence is about 50 minutes in. Don't bother with the rest of the film, though!

[Pheno]

Hi, my unmarried aunt was a buyer at Hamleys and we used to go and visit her in the shop when taken to London.  That would have been during the 1960's so don't think the Galeries could have occupied the position that Hamleys is in now back in the 60's.

Us 3 children also used to get first tryouts of any crazes that were being launched if she wanted to check if they would be good for children - an enormous life size plastic racing car turned up as a parcel one day for us to try out to see if we could pedal the thing!

Pheno

[JenB]

It certainly didn't occupy the Hamleys site.
If you take a look at the postings Gadget and I made about this (back in 2009 ) we both observed that it lay between Hamleys and Picadilly Circus.

[Woofams]

I was lucky enough to work in Galleries Lafayette in Regent St, in the 60s. I worked displaying windows and interior. The store was connected to the Paris and Nice stores at that time. It was a delightful place to work and I have happy memories of what I achieved there and the people I worked with. I. still have a postcard of the exterior. As much as I love Hamlets, it is sad to see the interior as it is now.

[Woofams]

I worked at Galleries Lafayette during the sixties, it was definitely where Hamleys is situated now. We had 13 windows and showcases which were walked between to enter the store. I worked in the display department.  Assessories on the ground floor. fashions on the first floor which was galleried, now Hamleys escalators. There were a further 3 sales floors, the fifth floor was for alteration and the staff canteen was on the roof. Offices and our display department was in the basement.I still have a picture of the store.

[kob3203]

I haven'tlogged in here for quite a while, so I've just had a fresh look at this.

ShaunJ said Galeries Lafayette was in the phone books from about 1927-1966 at 190 Regent St, and this 1928 newspaper ad for Galeries Lafayette states 188/196 Regent Street (https://www.flickr.com/photos/bradford_timeline/20690549191 ). So the Galeries Lafayette seem to have been at the same address (around 190, plus a few numbers either side) for that whole period.

Current address of Hamleys ( http://www.hamleys.com/explore-stores.irs ) is 188-196 Regent Street. Unless street numbering changed that's exactly where Galeries Lafayette was in the 1928 ad.

I just found a few photos of Regent Street in 1952 at WestminsterMemories.org.uk:

200-206 (http://www.westminstermemories.org.uk/page_id__10_img__40.aspx):
- Jaeger House
- Hamleys (so in 1952 Hamleys was in a slightly different place, a few shops north of it's current location)

188-198 unfortunately no photo, although Galeries Lafayette should be here.

176-186 ( http://www.westminstermemories.org.uk/page_id__10_img__39.aspx ):
- Kodak
- Boots
- Richard Shops
- Ciao(?) Pearls
- Imperial Fur Store

I also (thanks to Anita9659) found the Galeries Lafayette bit in an Indian cut of the 1970 movie "Cool It Carol" (one of those awful Robin Askwith movies!) on Youtube. Around the point that Anita mentioned there's a shot up the street from Galeries Lafayette, but I can't make out the shop names (nothing that immediately strikes me as being Hamleys). And then when she walks south from Galeries Lafayette the next shop is definitely a Kodak shop (assuming no jump cuts), and the next could be Boots?

So it seems fairly likely that Hamleys (guessing 200-202) and Galeries Lafayette (188-196) were actually neighbours (maybe with something else in between at 198?) for the whole of the 1960's, and after Galeries Lafayette closed Hamleys moved a few shops south and took over the Galeries Lafayette premises.

I think this would mean that everybody's correct to some extent !

[kob3203]

Here's the clearest screenshot * I can get of the view north from Galeries Lafayette in the late 1960s. We can clearly see Galeries Lafayette, but can anybody identify the other shops

Just in case anybody wants to investigate further, here's the YouTube URL (you have been warned - it's an Indian (censored) cut of an awful 1970 Robin Askwith movie called "Cool It Carol")  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANW9-6mtG7s

*Moderator comment: removed

Following the moderator's removal of the screenshot (I assume potential copyright reasons?), for anybody who's interested it was at about 47:10 into the YouTube video. Looking at the video again I'm now wondering if the red splotches near the top of the frame could be Hamleys flags, and whether the red sign on the shop just north of Galeries Lafayette could be the same sign shown at the far right of the black and white 1952 print of 200-206 (remembering that red appears black on monochrome prints)

[kob3203]

And here are the two shops to the south of Galeries Lafayette assuming no jump-cut (unfortunately there's no frame with both Galeries Lafayette and Kodak) - Kodak, then Boots

*Moderator comment: removed

Following the moderator removal of those two screenshots (I assume for potential copyright reasons?), if anybody's interested they were at about 47:46 into the video at the URL mentioned in the previous posts.  I'm now fairly sure that it is the same Kodak shop as in the 1952 photo, given the shopfront layout, and that it is Boots next door, which also matches the 1952 photo, although the Botts shopfront has changed significantly)