They’re manned by cosmetics-counter ladies who spend their days dispensing small pleasures in the form of lipsticks and perfumes and womenswear professionals who make you feel good when you try on a dress. Who will tell you should treat yourself, and help you actually believe it?

Department stores were always places where women were in charge, assisting each other as they went about the important business of outfitting their homes, their children, their husbands and themselves.

My own grandmother, an elegant and Olympian shopper, could work David Jones Chatswood like a slalom skier, expertly carving a track between children’s shoes, homewares and the gourmet food hall. As a girl, I trailed after her in awe, marvelling at her.

When she was in David Jones, she was in command. As a woman of her generation, there were probably not many spaces where she got to experience that.

My grandmother was also the person who turned me on to Madeleine St John, the Australian expat novelist who wrote a love letter to old-fashioned department stores, Ladies in Black.

Like so many post-war women writers (Elizabeth Harrower and Elizabeth Jane-Howard both spring to mind), St John was underappreciated during her lifetime.

Loading

But Ladies in Black has enjoyed a renaissance since it was made into a 2018 film by Bruce Beresford, and the ABC has reprised it for a contemporary television series.

St John’s department store – FG Goodes – is an unruffled, feminine space where tradition reigns and the social change of 1950s Australia is kept at bay. But the women working there get a taste of independence and an experience of sisterhood that changes them.

The characters have romantic interests, but the most stunning coup de foudre in the book is when young ingenue Lisa falls in instant love with a dress: “a froth of red pin-spotted white organza with a low neck, a tight bodice, a few deep ruffles over the shoulders”.

In lamenting the lost art of customer service, I disclose that during my time as a department store employee, I was no paragon. Probably the longest and most boring day of my life was a Sunday shift I worked in the kitchenware section of Grace Bros Chatswood.

I knew nothing about kitchenware – I could not tell a Le Creuset from a Pyrex. Any customer who came to me looking for counsel on tablescapes or crockery was confronted by an ignoramus who was dreaming of the beach.

Loading

In my defence, I was 17 and had just finished my HSC. To save up for (a belated) schoolies week, I applied for and won a job as a Christmas casual. I was using my overtime loading to get to Byron Bay, where freedom resided, and the rest of my life could begin.

The best part of working at Grace Bros was knocking off – the store had an excellent sweets section where I could get a bag of sugared mint leaves for the bus ride home.

After my inglorious stint in kitchenware, I was transferred upstairs to “baby wear”, another department that was very much outside my expertise. I gleaned that babies wore a lot of singlets, and I spent my summer folding and refolding these tiny garments, arranging them in piles from 0000 to 000 and 00 and so on.

There were two albums that played softly as the discreet shopping soundtrack – the Bee Gees greatest hits, which I could handle, and Mariah Carey’s Christmas album – which I could not.

When I got to Byron Bay, my retail career ended, left behind in a flare of exhaust from the ancient Nissan Bluebird we drove up the coast in. But now that I am old(er) and have formed an intimate acquaintance with both kitchenware and baby wear, I see the department store in a different and nakedly nostalgic light.

I was a mere Christmas casual, full of the arrogance of youth and utterly ignorant of everything, especially my own ignorance. But the women who were on permanent staff there were dedicated, elegant professionals who spent their days serving customers – mostly other women – and, in the process, gave them something more than what they were selling.

Respect, care, and service. Old-fashioned things that we all still need.

Jacqueline Maley is a columnist.