Canadian Department Stores Ltd., July 4 1927 |
While that detail may well contribute to the jigsaw puzzle that is the history of Canadian retail, what I find striking is that fact that this and so many early newspaper ads of this ilk and era don't bother to include a business address. Apparently, one just knew these things. Of course, when this appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, one could traverse the entirety of Ottawa's retail district in little over half an hour, so the store would have been that much harder to miss.
Cloche (bell-shaped) hats, of which some variants are included above, were invented (we are told) in 1908 by French milliner Caroline Reboux, as a rebuke to the overly-wide hat-brims of that decade. Their popularity persisted well into the 1930s.
I'm not sure what to call that intimidating Deco-on-the-Nile affair to the upper left and I don't know if Ottawa was ever actually ready for that sort of thing.