Do you remember the horror that was communal changing rooms in clothes shops?

[Sidebeforeself]

Just reflecting on this today .. I remember cowering in a corner trying to show as little as possible ( I was obese as a teen) . Then the shame if something was too small ( everyone’s looking!) . Also the wait for the mirror
It made clothes shopping a nightmare for me

Yes! Jane Norman Oxford Street was particularly awful and I seem to think even Selfridges had one down in the “high street fashion” bit. I was in there once with a minor celebrity and her stylist and had to try very hard not to stare 😂😂😂
This was latter 90’s.

Who thought they were a good idea? What was the logic? I can't imagine they saved space. Did men have to do communal changing as well?

Yes you had to try on because there was no return policy except faulty.
I also remember that M and S (at least near us) didn’t have changing rooms because they did have a no quibble returns(and without an expiry date I think. Plus they didn’t accept credit or debit cards, just cheques or the M and S store card).

I worked in primark in the late 90s when I was a student
Being on the changing rooms was the WORST job
Firstly it was communal but some people had hi boundaries... the disgusting things left in there... 🤢

Harder to steal stuff

In Amsterdam, until quite recently at least, many women's clothes shops had individual cubicles for changing BUT THE MIRROR WAS OUTSIDE IN THE MAIN SHOP!

I wonder if they thought it would be harder to shoplift in an open environment - you couldn't take your time in a cubicle concealing things about your person.

Or it might just be that it didn't seem a strange thing back then - as pps have mentioned, we had communal showers and changing rooms at school; our local swimming baths had a mix of cubicles and a communal area - it was normalised.

There weren't some of the risks there would be nowadays such as being covertly filmed or photographed, it would have been very obvious if someone had their pink Le Clic film camera flashing away in the changing room.

Shops such as TopShop, Chelsea Girl and Miss Selfridge didn't stock much variety of sizes, either - 10s, 12s and 14s with a small sprinkling of 8s and 16s if you were lucky - so the assumption might have been that everyone was in a broadly similar size bracket so there was no need to be self-conscious about your shape, although if that was the case it was a false assumption.

I remember TopShop having these!
I never minded them but I used to dance a lot in my teens so was pretty used to speed changing in communal dressing rooms.

The gym also used to have communal changing rooms.

That’s just brought back unwelcome memories! I’d forgotten that shop and the saloon doors.

I think a lot of shops had moved away from communal changing in my peak clothes buying era, but recall a few. I just avoided those shops in future!

No, I have never seem communal changing areas anywhere other than school.

Can’t lie this has never been a thing in my lifetime

but I assume the 4 things minimum thing is just so it’s easier for staff to monitor eg every person brings in the same amount of items so should bring out 4 items consistently. As otherwise when people bring in 1, then someone else brings in 3 etc etc it gets difficult to monitor for theft prevention purposes. Probably why shops these days have a number tag, or automatically detects the items being brought it, so staff aren’t expected to memorise

God, I remember these!

I'd forgotten all about that particular horror! Showing my age now, they were awful

I’m 38 and I remember them on Oxford Street around 2005, so it really wasn’t that historic. Had forgotten all about them until this thread!

Yeah, I didnt think I was that old!

I remember these. There's also a mention in Bridget Jones's Diary (the book, not the film) about them and the horror of it all.

I’m 41 and remember them. Vivid memories of trying on a cherry print halter neck dress in Miss Selfridge

It was probably Mirror Mirror on Nassau Street @mathanxiety
They had a shop at the top of Grafton Street just on St.Stephen’s Green too.
Do you remember Gaywear that changed its name to AWear ?

Top Shop still had communal changing rooms in the early 2000’s. The large stores had individual ones but not the smaller shops.
I’m pushing 59 and still bought some clothes from there when I was in my 30’s

The worst was the communal showers they had in my school. Going into a communal shower at 12 was absolutely horrific. I moved schools after a year and had nightmares all summer about whether the new school would also force me to have communal showers. I was really traumatised.

Also remember the communal changing rooms vividly in Top shop and Miss Selfridge..

Top Shop in Princes Street in Edinburgh had one. Shops been shut for ages now - still traumatised..

I didn't realise, until I read about them on here, how lucky we were not to have ever taken showers at school (girls school, '82 - '89). They sound awful.

TopShop Liverpool- I think it was meant to be a fancy changing room, it was all plush and red.
Also Debenhams had one, I got stuck alone with a group of teenagers. Mortifying. Who thought it was a good idea.

I went to a comprehensive school where we all had to walk through the communal showers. Everyone just walked through and out the other side. Sometimes you didn’t even get wet. Totally pointless. No one had anything to wash themselves with.

my mum taught at a Catholic school and I remember going there once and in The girls changing rooms there were individual shower cubicles with shower curtains. I was blown away and wished I was a Catholic.