Chelsea Girl
A Chelsea Girl store was opened on Argyle Street during the 1960s and very quickly became a must-visit stop on the city’s high streets for generations of young girls and women. From the 1960s mini-skirt, to the 1970s high-waisted trousers and cheesecloth shirts, to the cheeky rah-rah of the 1980s, Chelsea Girl was the place to shop.
The company started with English clothing retailer Bernard Lewis, who in 1948 began selling ladies' clothing and wool, along with fruit and vegetables, at a market stall in Notting Hill, London. But Lewis was not a simple barrow boy; he had a head for business and soon looked for a way to capitalise on the high demand for his stall’s female fashion wears. He and his brothers combined forces and opened nine ‘Lewis Separates’ stores; they began to make some of the clothes in-house, selling the first design, a white lace trim blouse, in 1950.
By the 1960s, the brothers owned a 70-store empire and had rebranded the business as ’Chelsea Girl’ to reflect the new fashions and culture of London’s trendy Chelsea, as designed by the likes of Mary Quant. The brand became one of the UK's first chain of female-only fashion boutiques.
Always with an eye for an opportunity, ‘Concept Man’ was added to the portfolio in 1982, extending the retailer's reach into menswear. However, both Chelsea Girl and Concept Man were eventually merged together to become part of River Island. In 2011, River Island launched a new collection called ‘Chelsea Girl’, which specialised in retro designs and ‘Chelsea Girl’ logo tops displaying the name and the iconic red love heart.
My memories of working in Chelsea Girl, 1974-1977
by Sher Allan
I worked in Chelsea Girl in Argyle Street from 1974 till 1977, maybe 1978, on Saturdays and during school and college holidays. I’ve always been a shopaholic, got that from my Mum, so this was heaven to me.
The overarching memory is of how busy both it and the town were back then. The traffic still ran both ways along Argyle Street, so the pavements were rammed.
My first uniform, bearing in mind this was 1974, 1975, was high waisted, very wide long trousers, with a cream shirt with pink hearts on it, just like the Chelsea Girl logo, and a brown cardigan with pink edging. Then we went to something similar in black and green. I have a hazy memory of having to pay something towards them as we got to keep them. Wonder what unions would have to say about that these days? Latterly, the brief was to dress as if for a night out - well out came the glitter, Lycra, whatever was outrageous at the time.
It was very busy and noisy. We had music on, can’t remember what, but must have been that charts of the day. It took forever to get though the throngs to get to your department, till, whatever. Seem to remember I started in coats. Keeping the racks tidied, helping people try them on as coats didn’t go to the fitting room. The rails were organised according to size, smallest at the front. Only 3 sizes back then, 10, 12, 14, and the sizing was much smaller then, a 10 was a 22 waist!
I graduated fairly quickly onto the tills, first as a packer, then as a cashier. That was fun, I learned how to cash up, writing down what we had in £20s, £10s etc., cheques, access slips and shopping checks (provies), and hoping it balanced with the till reading. Cheques had to have the address and card number written on the back, and access cards were put thought on a slide machine and we kept the front and gave the duplicate to the buyer. No way of checking if they still had credit. Had to do the cashing up every time we changed over. Advantage of being on the till was that I could wear my slippers (big fluffy things) under my maxi skirt and no-one could see. We also had to keep the till areas clean and tidy.
One time when I was on in menswear, a mouse ran across the floor. The two boys I was assisting at the time (heroes) grabbed their trouser bottoms and ran up the stairs. This was the era of very wide trousers and very high platforms (trousers just had to perfectly skim the ground). It took me and Gladys from shoes to catch the mouse in a shoe box and chuck it out the front door. I seem to remember a hoover being involved somewhere.
Each week one cashier had to take their lunch at 11am and stay on the till from 12pm till 7pm (late opening), as that’s where the cash for the wages was collected. Again, wonder what a union would have to say about that? Can’t remember what the wages were, but seemed like riches to me. On the subject of lunches, we had a canteen and you got (or had to buy?) vouchers, dunno why, health and safety perchance?
The main thing I remember selling was Simon shirts with tartan edges. This was the era of the Bay City Rollers; they were priced at £2.99 or £3.99, something like that. We may have sold the mad half-mast trousers too, can’t remember now.
Other random memories of menswear were the awful nylon pants with slogans / pictures on the front – very tasteful! Also, and this must have been latterly, when I was also interning in the Citizen’s Theatre wardrobe department, an actor I know (and fancied) came to the till to pay for a shirt or something, so I got talking to him about the last play I’d seen him in…. Well, the manager came down to ask why the queue from my till was up the stairs and out the front door. Well, the girl on packing duty had to chuck me off the till and take over.
There were different staff roles - stockroom, unpacking, hanging and labelling the stock, can’t remember if we had security tagging back then, probably not. Floor staff, keeping the rails tidy and helping customers find what they were looking for. Fitting room, counting items in and out and giving number boards - can’t remember if the fitting rooms were communal then, but I suspect they may have been. Packers and cashiers on the tills. We didn’t have a union and didn’t recall the need for one, but see previous points…….
I can’t remember the clothes I bought apart from a denim maxi skirt and a raincoat – we had to wear them a particular way, with the belt tied at the back, the fashion of the time. I must have bought loads though, as I loved their stuff.
I didn’t have pierced ears then, so I used to wear clip-ons. I remember going with my friend Ann, who also worked there, to a Chinese at St Enough Square, it may even still be there. I had sweet and sour chicken and fried rice – funny the things you remember.
That’s about it. I remember the whole thing as being fun and exciting. I’m sure there must have been downs, but blowed if I can remember them!
