Christmas Shopping On Carpets

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31221, 19 November 1966, Page 5

Christmas Shopping On Carpets

(Specially written (or “The Press’’ by

FRANCES BARBER)

(CHRISTMAS shoppers in the Sydney area are taking life easily this year. They are shopping to the hushed tones of sweet music, their feet cushioned by thick carpets and their ears pampered by soundproof ceilings. The discomforts and harsh noises associated with shopping sprees have been wafted away and the housewife experiences only the delights of what was once an exhausting chore.

This, in theory anyway, is how Sydney women are preparing for Christmas. Even if this “new look” in shopping is not everything its planners claim, it is a vast improvement on the foot-wearing trudge from shop to shop across scorching pavements in an Australian summer. Cost £8.5 Million The old-style trudging still exists—in fact, it takes precedence over any new-fangled idea—but the Sydney shopper can now choose whether she ) wants to stick to this tradij tional ritual or to take herI self a few miles out on the J fringe and try carrying out

the same chore In greater comfort.

In the municipality of Bankstown, about 10 miles from the Sydney G.P.0., a vast shopping mall opened a few weeks ago, in time to catch the bulk of Christmas shoppers. It cost £8,500,000, took 10 years to plan and build, contains 130 shops and provides parking space for 2000 cars. It is a mammoth dream come true and is so important to Sydney that Bankstown —the biggest municipality in Australia, with a population of 170,000 —hopes its brand-new status symbol will put it on the road to becoming a city. Publicity But Bankstown square, as the centre is called, cannot claim all the credit for the “new look” in shopping. Its predecessor, Roselands shopping centre at nearby Wiley Park, was previously the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. And now, even though it has lost this title to Bankstown square, it still earns reverence as the pioneer. The birth of the Square at the end of September was heralded by an intensive publicity campaign which sparked Roselands into concentrated advertising, to let Sydney know that they were there first.

But, compared with Bankstown square, Roselands is a mere baby in many ways. Opened just over a year ago, it cost only £6 million and has about 95 shops.

Both centres have introduced ambitious ideas to the Australian world of shopping. Their aim is comfort and relaxation for the shopper and her children, with no dollars spared by the designers. The art in planning these shopping malls in the suburbs is to include some of the vital services often provided only in a city: a post office, a medical centre staffed by general practi-

tioners and specialists, opticians, dentists and chiropodists; a “town hall” where parties, receptions and conventions can be held; a drivein bottle store; an “interpreter service” where shoppers from overseas can borrow an interpreter to solve their language problems.

These are just some of the services others include nurseries, petrol stations and banking facilities. National Dishes To encourage all-day shoppers, the planners have given plenty of thought and publicity to their eating facilities. Bankstown square is particularly ambitious—it boasts a “World Fare Restaurant,” inspired by Sydney’s cosmopolitan population. In the first three days after the square opened, this restaurant sold about 40,000 meals. And snack-eaters in those first few days were particularly peckish. Noted as great pielovers, the Sydney shoppers ate 10,000 meat pies and three tons of doughnuts. The restaurant has 13 kitchens and claims it can produce almost any meal from pie and vegetables to frogs’ legs. Its catering manager is I a former airline catering I manager.

Like Roselands, Bankstown square has made great claims about it services and general facilities and is justly proud of them. However, it seems to overestimate the ability of athletically-minded shoppers. One of its recent advertising supplements stated that the parking area completely surrounds the shopping building “and no car is more than a Stone's throw away.” Later in the supplement, it was discovered that the maximum distance between the building and a parked car is 135 yards. Can Australians really throw a stone that distance? Roselands is proud of being the first big shopping mall to offer the housewife everything she needs for a complete day out. She can arrive at the mall for an early-morning shopping spree and purchase almost anything from buttons to a fire-insurance policy; after a hair-set in the hairdressing salon she can have lunch in the restaurant (also open at night); in the afternoon she might like a dental or medical check in the professional and medical centre. Afternoon tea in the Rose Room helps pass the time and if she is lacking fresh air she can go up to the roof garden for a quick round on the minigolf course. Later in the rendezvous room she can iron

her frock and take a shower. Her husband meets her at the licensed restaurant for a meal before the show, and then they have an evening’s entertainment at Roselands theatre. After the show they pick up their car which has been washed and polished earlier at the car care centre, and drive round the corner to the self-service petrol station to fill up before going home. Record Profit

Shoppers are not the only people who appreciate these two giant shopping-community centres: the retail traders are also very keen. The retail group which originated and built Roselands, and which is [also the major trading unit I there, earned a record profit of more than £500,000 in the year to June 30. Traders are realising the importance of these suburban malls and many of them are only too pleased to close down their Sydney city premises and make a fresh start in the money-making suburbs. The development company which built Bankstown square was careful to make it attractive to the women who hold the family purse-strings. Women workers outnumber the men by at least two to one

and on the opening day an army of 800 female shop assistants moved in.

A partner in the Sydney firm of architects which designed the square said he wanted women shoppers to love the place—“and I mean love.” It is doubtful whether Bankstown square could be loved aesthetically. It has been criticised for its mundane appearance—as a Sydney newspaper columnist described it recently: “It doesn’t look good at all and parts of it are outstandingly hideous.” Everything about it—even down to the ashtrays—has been designed for a woman’s convenience than her artistic pleasure. Hideous, unimaginative, the big shopping centres have one aim in life, to please the housewife. There is no doubt they are succeeding, as more and more women flock to them to spend their housekeeping money. Whichever of these two is bigger or better, both are the talk of Sydney and are cramming in Christmas shoppers at a furious rate. The picture shows part of the escalator system linking three shopping levels in Roselands shopping centre, with viewing platforms at top left and right.