Christine Fisher-Lathwell – Keeping up with changing colours

Simon: What was the delay from Miss Pack to the colours changing?

Christine: I don’t know. There was a lady who bought clothes for Miss Pack as well as Miss Guy, a Mrs Connett, and she was the Manageress of Miss Pack, so she really did keep her eye. She was an older lady but very, very with it when it comes to clothes.

Mrs Connett, she was a lady in her sort of 50s or 60s but she just knew what was in fashion and she always dressed very fashionably, so I think probably Mrs Barrow may have taken Mrs Connett with her to buy clothes, and then looked at what Mrs Connett had bought.

I’m not saying that Mrs Barrow copied, it’s just that it took a while for the things, the colours that youngsters were wearing. For instance if they wore bright orange and brown, it just took a while for that to trickle through into the main clothing, unless it was of course that Mrs Barrow had bought her things and they didn’t come as quickly as Miss Pack’s ‘cos I remember Miss Pack’s used to get a lot of deliveries very quickly once a week and I would often help, even though I was doing the window, I would often help them bring the things in, you know to hang up, so whether it’s just the style of buying I don’t know.

I would hate to hint that Pack’s followed Miss Pack but they did pick up on the trends of colours, definitely.