Ghost Signs of Fashion’s Past

I am a curious person and I love walking - put these two things together and you get an unhealthy interest in everything from old buildings to all the weird and wonderful things you discover at street level. As you might have also guessed I have a big love of history and while walking about I am constantly wondering what might have happened on certain streets and buildings around the city. This is one of the reason’s why I am absolutely taken with Antonia Hart’s new book Ghost Signs. A book which contains all the answers to my curious meanderings, whether its the history behind the Boland’s Mill sign with its wild weeds growing through it or the sparkling green and gold mosaic lettering of Dublin’s much loved department store Switzers, still present on the side of Brown Thomas today. All these signs tell the story of Dublin city. With a thirst to find out more about her new book I had a chat to Antonia about the history behind the fashion ghost signs still present around the city.

Ruaruth: What moved you to write Ghost Signs Antonia?

Antonia: I was born and brought up in Dublin’s city centre, so I’ve been walking the city for a very long time. Well, perhaps a medium length of time. I’d been taking pictures of ghost signs for a few years, and I suddenly realised that things were changing – you’d walk past a sign you’d photographed, and find it was gone, or another letter had dropped off. I began to think it would be a good idea just to record them as they were, acknowledging that they would change and fade, or fall, or be covered up or destroyed. I just wanted to make that incision in time, record what I saw there, and reflect on why it was there. It felt like a lovely, fresh way to be looking at the city.

The beautiful Switzer’s sign still on the Brown Thomas building.

Ruaruth: Can you tell me a little about  any fashion related Ghost Signs from your book?

Antonia: Switzers is the most obviously fashion-related sign, and Switzers of course is legendary among Dubliners. Perhaps my generation, those of us born in the 1970s, is the last which had Switzers as a significant part of our childhood (the smell of Helena Rubinstein and Estee Lauder products on the ground floor, the toy department, the Father Christmas visit, the animated windows, running in to use the loo or have a Club Orange), but also made the transition into adult customers, until its closure almost twenty years ago.
Switzers started out in a single premises at 91 Grafton Street, and gradually expanded into the neighbouring shops, finally completing a link with its shop in Wicklow Street. By 1927 it had continuous frontage, and thirty impressive plate-glass windows, running down Grafton Street and rounding the corner into Wicklow Street. Commissionaires, highly-trained and disciplined staff, personal attention and nothing being too much trouble were the hallmarks of Switzers’ service and generated lifelong loyalty among its customers, whether they were shopping for radiograms, ribbons, Ciro pearls, fur coats, Hoovers or cosmetics, or bringing their fortunate children for a Saturday treat at the Soda Fountain. When Brown Thomas moved into the Switzers premises in February 1995, they retained the pretty, distinctive green and gold mosaic over the Wicklow Street entrance, and I think it’s lovely that after 150 years of rivalry, Brown Thomas had the grace to make that gesture to the memory of Dublin’s beloved Switzers.

Waterproofers sign from Crotty’s now Dunnes Stores on Grafton Street. Which was a business started by an employee of Elvery’s.

There is also Elvery’s on O’Connell Street which is of course still very much on the go. They started out as waterproofers, selling things like galoshes and fishing boots, waterproof capes and coats, but expanded into general sportswear and equipment. I loved including this little piece in the book:

“In 1952 the Times Pictorial was amused by one offering for the man-about-town who wanted ‘something new in the way of ties, which are also most useful for ‘the wife’ to borrow to take the plain look off an old blouse. Elvery’s of O’Connell Street have the answer, New ‘Confederate’ clip-on bow ties of uncrushable velvet, with 8-inch long streamers.”

Isn’t that brilliant? I can’t think of anything I would rather use to take the plain look off an old blouse.

Ruaruth: What did you discover from the research of this book?

Antonia: Too much to cram into one paragraph. But, for example, that business owners were prepared to commit not just to their business, but to the city. You don’t go round carving your name in stone unless you’re planning to be around for a few years. They were civic-minded, too – some of the business owners also served terms as aldermen or Lord Mayor (there are very few women behind this collection of ghost signs, though there are some), lots of businesses supported local charities and hospitals and were quick to help out when there was a problem (like Lennox Chemicals making a donation to the fund started for the dependents of three firemen who died fighting a fire in Pearse Street). I think all those things are factors of the business owners being local, and present, and invested in the city in many different ways – their families lived there, their businesses operated there, it was most likely the city they would retire in and be buried in. I think in the city centre today the incidence of local ownership is much lower.

Ruaruth: What is your most favourite sign in the city and why?

Antonia: Well, my favourite sign in the book is probably the one which is not really a sign at all. It’s the ledge on the O’Connell Street Supermacs facade, which almost two hundred years ago held the figure of an elephant. The elephant signified the tea merchant trading there, importing tea from India, for which the elephant was a generally recognised symbol. The building became known as Elephant House, and when the last tea merchant moved out and Elvery’s waterproofers (as they then were) moved in in the late 1840s, they used Elephant House as their address, incorporating the elephant into their advertising materials and later into their logo. “Elvery’s elephant” appears not once but twice in Joyce’s Ulysses, and it’s still used, all these years on: there’s a 21st century elephant over Elvery’s shop in Suffolk Street. In O’Connell Street, all that’s left is the Elephant’s ledge. That’s my favourite ghost – the invisible one on that little ledge.

Ruaruth: How have Ghost Signs survived?

Antonia: Some by luck, some by design. Sometimes a new business owner might not even realise there’s a ghost sign there on their building, you might be doing work on your shopfront and come across something. What do you do with it then? Keep it, of course, if you’re a sentimental old fool like me. But what’s to stop you painting over it or covering it up with your own sign? Nothing, unless it’s part of a listed facade. Trinity, for example, has cleaned and preserved two signs on buildings it owns in South Leinster Street – signs for both Finn’s Hotel and Lennox Chemicals. The W&R Jacob sign has been kept as part of the new DIT building. Others you can see falling away before your eyes – the whole Thomas Read shopfront, Ireland’s oldest shop, has been decaying for years now, and the Boland’s signs on Grand Canal Dock are suffering from weathering and getting overgrown with weeds.

You can find Antonia Hart’s amazing new book Ghost Signs in all good bookshops and online here. A fabulous Christmas present for the lover of Dublin town.

See more on Antonia’s blog here

Have you spotted any other fashion ghost signs about the city? If you have comment below!

Photos of  the Ghost Signs for this blog were taken by Ruth Griffin in Canon EOS 600D