“SUMMER COMFORTS”
aT LORD & TAYLOR’S AND ELSEWHERE
One hundred years ago today … As the summer heated up, New Yorkers of means could purchase new products to make the heat more bearable and the leisure time more pleasurable. A July 6 advertisement for department store Lord & Taylor hawked electric fans and picnic gear.
Lord & Taylor was located, then as it is now, on 5th Avenue between 38th and 39th Streets; its 1914 move to the spot was covered in a 2014 Bowery Boys post.
Its publicity department seems to have been attuned to the new season and the commercial possibilities thereof
Other companies used “summer comforts” as a hook, too, though their wares sometimes had a unclear relation to summer …
… or an unclear relation to comfort.
WRITTEN BY JONATHAN GOLDMAN, JULY 6, 2020.
TAGS: summer, fashion, shopping, department stores, advertising, weather, Lord & Taylor, household good, leisure