Velvet in Winter, Eyelet in Summer

Coming of age in the era of department stores: A nostalgic study of Western civilization

I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, at a time when many suburbanites decided they no longer wanted to go downtown. When I was in elementary school, the first enclosed mall in Ohio opened. It was called the Severance Center (named after a prominent local family, not the word for the act of forceable disengagement). A girl in my class modeled for the ads, which made her a celebrity in school. I spent every subsequent weekend at Severance, roaming around with friends and trying on clothes we didn’t buy.

Severance, the first enclosed shopping mall in Ohio, was a revelation at the time

All the big department stores in Cleveland opened branches at Severance, but their main stores downtown stayed open. My mother was devoted to those downtown stores, so a few times a year she trundled us off for a day of downtown shopping. In the Sixties, Cleveland had been roiled by civil unrest and rioting. Many of my parents’ friends had forsworn the inner city, preferring the gloss and uniformity of the suburbs. But my parents didn’t. My father kept his office downtown, and my mom went in often, including these shopping pilgrimages she did with my sister and me.