Foley's New Look

As interested as Alice in Wonderland, Houston shoppers last week crowded into a new kind of department store—window-less,* monolithic Foley's. On the opening day, 200,000 customers came to blink at the indirect lighting, peer through streamlined showcases at $6,500,000 worth of merchandise and enjoy the air conditioning (it was 89° outside).

They did more than just inspect. The first day's receipts were around $250,000, some 2½ times as much as Foley's had ever grossed at its outgrown store. The jingle of cash registers was merry music to Foley's chubby boss, Fred Lazarus Jr., president of the Federated Department Stores (TIME, Dec. 9).

Lazarus has long held that the only way department stores can maintain their profits when the current boom slacks off is to make it possible for every clerk to serve more customers. To make this come true in Houston, he hired Manhattan Designer Raymond Loewy and associates to lay out a $12,000,000 store that would make selling more efficient.

One of the greatest timesavers for customers in Foley's new store is a chute system to deliver packages to a central claim desk. Buyers do not have to wait or load themselves down, but pick up all their packages at one time.

By the end of the first week in the new store, Fred Lazarus was sure he had something. The week's gross: about $1,050,000. Lazarus could hardly expect business to stay as good as that, once the novelty wore off. But the mechanical gadgets are expected to boost the average yearly sales of clerks from 30% to 50% over stores of older design. Lazarus was sure that he could gross $24 million a year, 50% more than the old store's take.