Farmer's called its twice-yearly catalogue a "Fashion Book", so it's easy to tell that its main business was selling clothes.
It began in 1840 as a shop on Pitt Street, Sydney, offering "a well selected and fashionable stock of drapery goods". The store prospered, moved to progressively larger premises over the years and becoming a limited liability company in 1897. By the beginning of the twentieth century shoppers were visiting a large, six-storey building on the corner of Market and Pitt Streets; a decade later Farmer and Company had acquired land and expanded into adjacent George street. By 1937 Farmer's was able to boast that its store occupied one and a quarter acres of land!
Lest you think that size was all the Company had to brag about, they also proudly announced an art gallery (the Blaxland Galleries on the eighth and ninth floors of the George Street store), a commercial radio station license (from 1923), escalators (installed 1927) and from 1936, air-conditioning!
The cover of Farmer's Autumn & Winter Fashion Book for 1940 illustrates:
Left: UB40—A casual Swagger Coat, from cosy wool-boucle coating. This swinging-style features square shoulders and neatly stitched collar.
Right: UB41—Swinging Swagger Coat in a soft, supple-wool coating. Featuring Peter-Pan collar, square shoulders and four flap pockets.
Centre: LB55—Tailored, knitted Jumper Silk of pure wool. Features smart straight neckline; yoke is trimmed with two tabs. Plain, tailored skirt.
Sadly, after the war things didn't go so well for Farmer's. Among other things, their customers were moving out to the ever expanding suburbs, making it harder for them to get to Farmer's city stores. Farmer & Company tried following their customers, opening their first suburban branch in Gordon in 1960. However, that didn't save the business, which was taken over by Myer in Melbourne in 1961. No longer an independent entity, Farmer's continued trading in Sydney as "Farmer's" until 1976, when Myer re-branded its Sydney stores with its own name.
For those wanting to investigate further, Farmer's Spring and Summer Fashions catalogue for 1897 is available online.
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