Despite the suggestion from Microsoft Word’s artificial intelligence tool that I let it draft a short article on how to volunteer at a non-profit organization or create a summer shopping list, I have decided to use my natural intelligence for a topic I amthinking about and, in my view, is more pressing. That is, where on God’s green earth is a Canadian woman supposed to go these days to buy socks, underwear, hand towels, and pantyhose?
It used to be that I, nay, every Canadian woman I know, would go to The Hudson’s Bay Company, the iconic Canadian department store spawned by two French fur traders in 1659, and known to modern-day shoppers as The Bay. We had our choice of either the smaller Bay in our local mall or, if we needed more selection and higher end options, our flagship Bay, often downtown and featuring six levels of shopping, designer boutiques on the fifth floor, and a gourmet food cafeteria in the basement.
My visits to The Bay always began with a march through cosmetics, holding my breath as I passed the fragrance counters and the ladies who offered perfume-soaked strips of paper or a spray from the bottle they had pointed at me. That march meant I was on a mission. Perhaps to deal with a newly discovered run in my pantyhose that started at my big toenail and ended in the middle of my knee. Nothing could deter me. Not Ladies’ Wear, a department that sometimes made me wonder if being a colour-blind schizophrenic was qualification for employment as a Hudson’s Bay purchaser. Not the dizzying laps around Hudson’s Bay blankets required to ascend the multiple escalators to the hosiery floor. Like many women before and after me, I relied on steady feet, a sense of direction to rival a French voyageur, and a guarantee that I could be in a new pair and back at work faster than a Starbuck’s barista could make and serve a Grande pumpkin latté.
It was in this department store, once the governing power of more than half of the landmass now called Canada, that I could find multitude pairs of socks of every brand, shape, size, and pattern; a skin-colour rainbow of pantyhose offering a spectrum of girdle support that guaranteed bellies of any shape or size would be tucked in, smoothed out, and rendered invisible under pants or skirt. Underwear? By God, there was underwear. An entire morning could be spent in Lingerie perusing an endless assortment of materials, styles, and colours. Or, if I needed my Calvin Klein “Old Faithfuls” before my one-year-old woke up and threw his soother, I could head straight for the “Three Pairs for $20” bin and – God bless the Hudson’s Bay Company – be in and out in under ten minutes. And if I also needed hand towels, I was two escalators and one tight lap away from Housewares and a selection of size, colour, and plushness to take my breath away. This was the efficiency and confidence every Canadian woman was gifted by The Bay.
Today, I cannot do any of this. On June first of this year, in a move that surely had demons in hell chortling and clinking pitchforks, The Bay ended three hundred and fifty-five years of operation and closed its stores, abandoning millions of Canadian women to drive aimlessly through city streets, stand gaping in parking lots, and ride helplessly up and down mall escalators wondering, “Where do I go now?” when they need socks and underwear.
Take slips for example, that distinct article of women’s underclothing that started as a smock in the Middle Ages and became, in the 1920’s, a thin liner of rayon to be worn under the modern fabrics that were either clingy or see-through. For one hundred years, Canadian women were rescued with slips found at The Bay. Half-slips, full slips, short slips, long slips, white slips, black slips, nude slips, pink slips. The Bay had more slips than Dr. Seuss had fish.
Arrive home with a new skirt, discover you can see right through it, but love it too much to take it back? Cue: The Bay. If you arrived at the right time in the middle of the afternoon, you would find a 60-something no-nonsense saleslady peering at you over glasses attached to a chain and smelling of the perfume-soaked paper strip that you were offered on your way in. A woman who knew in three seconds what you needed and where to find it. A woman whose two-inch manicured nails would fly over the cash register buttons while she offered you a ten percent discount if you signed up for a Hudson’s Bay credit card. Those days are gone. Today, buying a slip means defining the word “slip” and explaining why anyone would wear one to salesgirls who are thirty years younger than you are and want their clothes to either cling or be see-through.
I know from experience. The calf-length sage-green sheath dress looked good in the lighting at Aritzia. The 20-something salesgirl said the fit was “fire”, a descriptor that had to be repeated so I could hear it over the store’s piped-in indie pop track and then translated because I am fifty-five years old and fire is something that happens in my kitchen when I forget I have something under the broiler.
“Good,” she explained, convincing me to take the dress home.
However, when I tried it on at home, I knew it would never leave the room, let alone the house. I needed a slip. And because thirty years of shopping programming is not easily undone, I went back to the mall, forgetting that the only store guaranteed to rescue me, The Bay, was now bankrupt.
The giant space at the end of the mall was now a war zone of broken-down racks and dismembered mannequins dressed in liquidation sale banners. After a few seconds of standing in front of the security panels and willing the department store back into existence, I joined my lost sisters on the escalators, looking for a place to shop.
Aha! Victoria Secret! Surely the leader in lingerie for almost half a century, the inventor of the Miracle Bra, and the launcher of super model catwalk careers the world over would have a slip.
“Slip?” the young woman looked at me like I was asking for directions to the moon. In Persian.
“Yes,” I said. “To wear under a dress.”
She stared.
I said, “A dress that is not lined and needs a liner.”
No response.
Wondering if I should check her for a pulse or a reboot button, I tried again, “It’s usually made of rayon. It can start at the waist. Or it could be full length with bra straps.” Pause. Stare. “That’s what I need. Full length.”
Her eyes brightened. “Oh! Do you mean a negligee?” And striding towards a rack, she triumphantly raised a ten-inch piece of hot pink polyester lined in fake fur, cut out at the sides and back, and glittering with rhinestones. Now it was my turn to stare.
Across the hall at La Senza, a lingerie chain made successful by being across the hall from Victoria Secret, the salesgirl knew what a slip was but lamented the fact that I would not find one in the mall that day.
“We don’t carry them anymore,” she said sadly, admitting she did not know why and leaving me to assume that this could only be the work of those pitchfork-clinking demons.
No more confident march in and out of The Bay. It was a disappointed trudge through the mall, eyes dry from the recessed LED lighting and feet sore from the polished concrete floor as I tried to remember if I had parked outside Classic Newsstands or Mobile Klinik. I was headed home to order from Amazon where I would attempt to pick the best slip from seven pages of options with only deceptive fashion photography and anonymous reviewer comments as my guide.
While I punched in my Amazon username and password and grabbed my phone to access and enter the one-time pass code, I longed for the 60-something no-nonsense saleslady at The Bay with her heavy perfume, glasses on a chain, and two-inch manicure. The one who knew that Lingerie section like the back of her hand and understood what a woman was up against when trying to leave the house during daylight hours in a polyester dress.
The latest news is that Canadian Tire, another Canadian retail legend, has purchased the Hudson’s Bay Company brand. I had a look at the website. They are selling Hudson’s Bay-striped blankets, travel mugs, Christmas tree balls, toques, and nutcracker dolls. The demons might be chortling for now, but I have faith in an all-powerful God and He might just hear the distressed cry of Canadian women and inspire someone to put our high quality socks, underwear, hand towels, and pantyhose back in one location where they belong.
Until then, ladies, see you on the escalator.
