FROM THE ARCHIVES:A bus strike over Christmas in 1983 disrupted the sales in Dublin but not in the more expensive shops, as Eileen O'Brien reported. – JOE JOYCE
SHOPKEEPERS AROUND O’Connell Street and Henry Street wore long sorrowful faces yesterday as they gazed from half-empty shops to half-empty pavements – for them the bus strike meant bad business.
But there is always room at the top, and in Drury Street, Paul Costelloe’s exquisite tweeds and knitwear were selling well. Mr Costelloe thanked heaven the strike had not affected his business. In a snootier shop, the vendeuse declared: “All our customers come by car.”
Mr Costelloe did not wish to specify reductions, but his suits were to be had in Brown Thomas at, for instance, £46 for the skirt and £75 for the jacket.
These and some Jimmy Hourihan suits and coats at £59 odd were the only Irish goods I saw in Brown Thomas. There were Swedish tweed skirts at £18.99, French dresses less 25 per cent and a small number of Louis Jourdan shoes reduced from £69 to £45, Italian boots at £130 and good Italian shoes for £29.
A queue had waited for Brown Thomas’s doors to open. At its head, an American, Ms Carmelita Franco, and her Irish friends were going to buy a magnum of champagne for £1. Just behind stood a young man from Singapore and around at the end of the queue, which stretched to Murray McGrath’s optician in Duke Street, some young girls were waiting simply to look around the store.
The shop with the longest and longest-lasting queue – for most of the others vanished once the doors opened – was Pamela Scott’s. I asked a girl far back in the queue why she was willing to wait: “I have no idea actually,” she answered.
The older women, however, said this shop always had a good sale. There was a pretty harlequin dress in the window at £25, and a corduroy blouson reduced from £45 to £20.
A young woman waiting at Ella’s, the shoe shop, was more purposeful and was also the happiest shopper I met all day. Ms Dorothy Molins was going to buy summer shoes because she was off to Marbella in Spain . . .
I followed a woman in a superb mink coat to discover her destination. It was Billie’s, but because there was a queue she could not get in. They had good-looking tweed suits for £49.99.
There was a queue outside F. X. Kelly’s man’s shop across the road, where jackets were down from £59.50 to £35, and from £75 to £49.
Ray Treacy, the Irish football international, who was collecting for an anti-drugs campaign, said he was getting wonderful response.
Clerys fur department was thronged with customers. Mr Tom Rea, the managing director, said the furs continued to sell well in spite of – or possibly because of – the recession, as they were an investment. In hard times, people bought less but better, he said. They also bought brighter clothes and more cosmetics.
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