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70's And 80's Mall Stores


srm

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Margo's LaMode in Almeda Mall

Wow, another Houston mystery solved! Tks Papi!

The pieces of memories puzzle slowly come together... :)

PS, how can we ever forget the carousel turning around in the center court of Almeda Mall? I am pretty sure it has been mentioned on Haif-a-rama.

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I know I got the platform shoes to complete the outfit at The Wild Pair in the Galleria. Everybody wanting the most outrageous shoes did.

I was at the Galleria this weekend, and was surprised to see that there's still a Wild Pair there - of course, it looks considerably different than the 70s incarnation. Perhaps it's always been there, and I just never noticed it before, but I thought all of the Wild Pair stores were long gone.

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This is more early 90s, but a place I liked to shop as a high schooler in the Willowbrook Mall was J Riggins. I guess they went out of business.

J Riggins was also discussed in detail on other mall topics but I was a regular :ph34r: American Gigolo was a smash at theaters & every guy had to be a Richard Gere clone (before the gerbil controversy a few yrs later).

Riggins was later to be the Miami Vice - Don Johnson look-a-like clothing store. I will never forget the very light weight paperlike pants (light blue) and yep, light pink jacket. They even sold the varied coloered espadrille shoes! They only lasted for a few wks. Now you are Don Johnson just like that! The style would vanish by the next summer. :lol:

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J Riggins was also discussed in detail on other mall topics but I was a regular :ph34r: American Gigolo was a smash at theaters & every guy had to be a Richard Gere clone (before the gerbil controversy a few yrs later).

Riggins was later to be the Miami Vice - Don Johnson look-a-like clothing store. I will never forget the very light weight paperlike pants (light blue) and yep, light pink jacket. They even sold the varied coloered espadrille shoes! They only lasted for a few wks. Now you are Don Johnson just like that! The style would vanish by the next summer. :lol:

It's actually J. Riggings, as seen here:

P8090044.JPG (right click it to see)

Picture taken by me at Mall of the Mainland...

Edited by IronTiger
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before my sister graduated high school, my mom would take me shopping with them and i would get to go to the fun stores. one was called dk's on hillcroft. they had great hip huggers (i didn't even have hips back then) and monogrammed purses.

once my sister went to college, i started making my own clothes.

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As most teens did in the 80's, I spent a lot of time trolling the mall! I'm trying to remember all those shops we used to love to buy clothes at. Here are some that come to mind:

Wicks n Sticks

Anybody else out there have memories of great shops in the malls of the 70's and 80's? I know there are tons more. Open your memories!

I wonder if this is that store that featured rows and rows of really neat Wax candles ???

I do recall always seeing a candle shop that had really cool candles made to look like ice cream, ala Banana splits, Soda fountains, sundaes. They seemed very realistic from a distance and I think had scents of that specific flavor of ice cream.

I also think they featured inscents?

Another Houston Mall mystery question! 1st winner gets a banana split! Yumm! :blush:

once my sister went to college, i started making my own clothes.

Smart, smart, smart! Good for you! This is how some of the most famous designers started! ^_^

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I wonder if this is that store that featured rows and rows of really neat Wax candles ???

I do recall always seeing a candle shop that had really cool candles made to look like ice cream, ala Banana splits, Soda fountains, sundaes. They seemed very realistic from a distance and I think had scents of that specific flavor of ice cream.

I also think they featured inscents?

Another Houston Mall mystery question! 1st winner gets a banana split! Yumm! :blush:

Yeah Vert, your right that would have been the place. I remember the Wicks n' Sticks at Westwood mall back in the 70's which also had candles either carved or moulded like dragons and castles among other things. I couldn't imagine someone buying one of these, and then ever lighting it. They were not cheap!

It was no Yankee Candle Company, for sure!

Now if anyone else remembers Westwood...there was another store there (I think) called Pickwick records. They had so much stuff in this store! In the 70's they had records, black light posters, lava lamps, tie dyed clothing, you name it.

One of the things I remember buying there was a beer can lamp. I know somebody else has to remember these. They sold them in all different colors, beer or soda cans, and they had this sort of flickering fillament in them that looked like a flame when you pluged it in. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world as a kid, but you can't find these anywhere now. Lava lamps, sure... but not those.

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Yeah Vert, your right that would have been the place. I remember the Wicks n' Sticks at Westwood mall back in the 70's which also had candles either carved or moulded like dragons and castles among other things. I couldn't imagine someone buying one of these, and then ever lighting it. They were not cheap!

It was no Yankee Candle Company, for sure!

Now if anyone else remembers Westwood...there was another store there (I think) called Pickwick records. They had so much stuff in this store! In the 70's they had records, black light posters, lava lamps, tie dyed clothing, you name it.

One of the things I remember buying there was a beer can lamp. I know somebody else has to remember these. They sold them in all different colors, beer or soda cans, and they had this sort of flickering fillament in them that looked like a flame when you pluged it in. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world as a kid, but you can't find these anywhere now. Lava lamps, sure... but not those.

The beer can lamps came in Busweiser, Coors, Lone Star, etc. That store did have major cool stuff! I bought one of those long rectangular glass enclosed things that contained BLUE liquid inside. As the casing tilted back & forth the blue substance would roll up and down like a real ocean wave, major cool! :D

Most of the these shops had some of the newest, chrisp off the presses Rock n Roll band T-shirts too. I clearly recall Led Zeppelin, Bad company, Eagles (I still have a pic of me in y Hotel California T) The Who, Boston, Yes, then once New Wave became all the rage, those cool T's ala The Pretender's, Blondie, Devo, invaded the racks.

Many of these stores were also allowed to sell "rocks" that really neatly psychedelic colored rock w/a hole thru it so people could place thier doobees inside & puff away?They even featured huge bong's I suppose for big parties, etc. What ? :lol:

Ever notice the managers, and staff always seemed lind of hippish at these stores? Coincidence?lol

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Wow, another Houston mystery solved! Tks Papi!

The pieces of memories puzzle slowly come together... :)

PS, how can we ever forget the carousel turning around in the center court of Almeda Mall? I am pretty sure it has been mentioned on Haif-a-rama.

My kids LOVED that thing. They literally cried when it was taken out.

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One of the things I remember buying there was a beer can lamp. I know somebody else has to remember these. They sold them in all different colors, beer or soda cans, and they had this sort of flickering fillament in them that looked like a flame when you pluged it in. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world as a kid, but you can't find these anywhere now. Lava lamps, sure... but not those.

Memories of Spencer's Gifts.

7Up started it with a TV commercial that had one of those oscillating filament bulbs in a 7Up can lamp. I had one around 1970 when I was a kid.

You can find the 7Up can lamps on eBay, the colored oscillating bulbs are very scarce, though you can substitute one of these:

http://www.kyp-go.com/products.htm Balafire bulb.

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Seems all my clothes came from Weiners, the Sears Surplus near Almeda Mall (same shopping center as Millers Outpost, incidentally), KMart and Target. When we left town in the 80's and dad got a better paying job, we actually shopped at JCPenney's sometimes!!! :D

I recall being embarassed about this in junior high, but by high school I could care less. Mom and Dad buying me some jeans at Sears beat the hell out of me buying my own clothes!

After I became responsible for myself, I realized that even Sears is out of their minds on price! Most of my clothes come from Sam's Club now. I can appreciate $15 slacks, $12 jeans and $15 shirts.

I also shopped with my parents at the Sears Surplus store near Almeda. That strip center has changed a good bit over the years. If I remember right, there was a Woolco in the same center in the 70's.......

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  • 7 years later...
On August 30, 2008 at 11:03 AM, jetbeetle said:

We used to get music shirts from H&H music that said stuff like HAMMER GUITARS and D-DRUMS, we couldn't play a single note but the girls didn't know that. Parachute pants and Go Round are still things tied together in my mind and Chess King always reminds me of Michael Jackson's Jackets.

HAMER

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 years later...

There was a clothing store in the Houston Galleria. Early 90s I'm thinking. It was tropical/surfer themed. I never knew how to say the name. Maybe started with an X but I could be wrong. It was in a small section of Galleria back then (I think Galleria 3) near Thirsty's. You had to walk through a long hallway to get there. Please help me remember the name!

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  • 8 months later...
On 8/29/2008 at 2:30 PM, srm said:

As most teens did in the 80's, I spent a lot of time trolling the mall! I'm trying to remember all those shops we used to love to buy clothes at. Here are some that come to mind:

Clothing:

County Seat

Jean's West

Merry-Go-Round

Dejaiz

Chess King

Foxmoor

The Gap (when it was strictly jeans and t-shirts)

Judy's

Some other mall stores that are now defunct:

Kinney's shoes

Thom McAn

Wicks n Sticks

Morrow's Nut House

Art Standing

Hickory Farms

Woolworth's

Baker's Shoes

The Wild Pair

Anybody else out there have memories of great shops in the malls of the 70's and 80's? I know there are tons more. Open your memories!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This one was mid-late 80s, into the 90s, Babbage's computer software store. My younger brother and I frequented the one in Willowbrook Mall in the late 80s-early 90s. I remember wanting to get Leisure Suit Larry there, and my mom read the back of the box and said "uh, no, you're not buying this, not even with your own money." We bought some of the first LucasArts (back then LucasFilm) games there, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Secret of Monkey Island.

 

If you remember Babbage's and are asking yourself "I wonder what happened to them?" the answer is they merged with another software retailer you might remember, Software Etc., in 1994, and became Babbage's Etc,. then launched the GameStop brand in 1999, which took off, with all the Babbage's Etc. stores being rebranded as GameStop in the next few years after that. I'm sure everyone is familiar with GameStop, you probably have a recently shuttered one just down the street from you.

 

This picture is not of the Willowbrook location, I just pulled it off the internet.

babbages.jpg

Edited by Reefmonkey
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  • 1 month later...

Good post there about Babbage's. I completely forgot about that place. Definitely went there in the early days of computing (maybe at Westwood, Sharpstown, or Meyerland malls). I can't remember what I purchased, but probably was DOS books or early software.

Edited by Gurgis
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 7 months later...
On 3/21/2009 at 12:19 AM, RhinoVP said:

 I remember the Wicks n' Sticks at Westwood mall back in the 70's which also had candles either carved or moulded like dragons and castles among other things. I couldn't imagine someone buying one of these, and then ever lighting it. They were not cheap!

 

The history of Wicks 'n Sticks is something I would like to find more of - did they have a catalog circa 1980 that illustrates all the crazy candle designs? Are there candle catalogs from this era, not necessarily from Wicks 'n Sticks, which include these sorts of candles? Is there anywhere on the web that showcases the candles of this era? 

According to their Wikipedia entry, the chain started in Houston in 1968. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicks_'N'_Sticks Does anyone know more about it?

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  • 1 month later...

Memorial City was my 'main' mall...Esprit (I wish they were still in business), Foley's, Lord & Taylor, the Limited, Frost Brothers...other places we always checked out - the Hammond (?) Organ store, Cactus Records & Tapes, Spencer's Gifts, Wicks 'n' Sticks, Waldenbooks. A kiosk that sold little ribbon glass animals.

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We have a similar thread here, but, yep... Dream Merchant and Judy's... Judy's had some clothes for guys, I bought my first pair of Spandex there. The girl I was hanging around with at the time talked me in to getting silver instead of the standard black. This was 83? 84? i haven't talked to her in a couple of years, she went off the deep end when the T-Word won his election... 

Just the other day, I was thinking about a button I bought at Dream Merchant... It had five four letter words on it, it's something that will trigger and word filters we may have here, but it's euphanisms for feces, fornicate, damn, urinate, hell.... I wore that to school today along with the silver Spandex and a black and white zebra print shirt I bought at Dream Merchant.... 

 

I wonder how Sadie and JD are doing these days....

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  • The title was changed to 70's And 80's Mall Stores

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