Categories
Consumerism Melbourne

A little bit of history: cash railways (not the usual type of railway I post about)

I’d been told this segment was coming up on Coxy’s Big Break, and it finally aired on Sunday: a look at the cash railways at the shop I worked at part-time as a teenager, Hattams in Elsternwick. Apparently these are some of the few still working cash railways in Victoria. They were common in medium  ... [More]

Categories
Consumerism

Simple jobs

Here’s another blog post inspired by a discussion with the kids. Relatively simple things, it appears, can also be quite profitable. Back when I worked at Hattams as a 16-17 year-old, the alterations for trousers and jackets and things were done by a bloke called Telly who lived up the road. Trouser shortening was $5,  ... [More]

Categories
Clothes Consumerism

The number became a brand

Back when I worked at Hattams (mid 80s to early 90s), we stocked Levi’s jeans, primarily the 555 “red tabs”, but also the 517 “boot cut”. The numbers were Levi’s product codes. The first digit 5 signified they were for adult men’s — my recollection is that the “student” (kids/young men up to a size  ... [More]