comment by
Michael Kläsgen
The idea of the department store was, one must say, revolutionary. There you could find everything under one roof that was new, innovative and hard to find anywhere else at the time. In addition, you could touch it, help yourself and there were price tags on the goods that applied equally to everyone. It was the end of social discrimination based on prices, as well as the end of many local traders, tailors, carpenters and shoemakers. And it was a celebration for customers. Émile Zola described this perfectly for Paris in his 1884 novel “The Paradise of the Ladies”.