Christmas shopping in 1987

The last 2 times I was in my local mall was 1986 & 2022 (it was like day and night by comparison).

I only went in 2022 because it was rumored to be its last year on planet Earth (it wasn't).

In the 80’s, I hung out at malls quite often. Near Christmas, my family would go together, then split up, and we’d all go off and buy the majority of gifts in one day. The car would be stuffed with gifts in bags on the way home.

We have greater access and ease now, but I believe we were happier people when we shopped and lived like this.

r3 it got people out of their homes and they had social interaction. It was healthier for people to go out and walk around and interact with others.

I agree with R3 and 4. I noticed the video was shot at Marshall Field's. As a young man, it was the holiday shopping highlight when I went shopping at Field's. There was one in one of our malls and the flagship store in Chicago as well as the one in Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue were only about a 45-minute drive from my home. It was festive and the store associates were the absolute best at making your shopping experience a true holiday moment. I miss that feeling now. Yes, it was simpler time and made you further embrace the holidays.

1987 was probably right around peak mall. Dead malls began to appear in large numbers during the 90s. Malls had changed during the 80s--more narrow ranges of merchandise and pricing. Off-price and "category killer" big boxes evolved out of categories that malls had shed like full-line book stores, department store budget stores, and lower end clothing in shoe chains (many went out of business in the late 70s and early 90s-the baby bust and the aging/changing needs of boomers took away their primary customers, which were teens and young adults. Malls already were becoming less interesting.

OP, thanks for this. I was 18 in 1987 and love seeing the fashions. What strikes me is how much better dressed people were. Even the people in jeans in your video look more presentable. No leggings or pajamas or slippers.

And the luxe paper shopping bags with your purchases carefully packaged! Nowadays, the clerks just stuff your shit in a flimsy plastic bag. If you get a gift box at all, it's a flat one you have to assemble yourself at home.

Lots of awful things about the 80s, but holiday shopping at the mall was indeed lovely.

R3 Notice nobody looking down on their phone while walking. It’s so annoying, especially when it’s a lady because you feel obligated to be a gentleman and move out of the way. But it’s like bitch wtf, look up, you don’t own the walkway. Also very few fat people in that video. Christmas decorations used to be so splendid in malls. They’ve cut back so much.

Americans demand the lowest possible price 100% of the time. That doesn't allow for a lot of frivolities and niceties, so now you have to get your Christmas spirit by looking at a bunch of Amazon cardboard boxes piled up on your front porch.

It's a continuous, never-ending race to the bottom.

I watched a video the other day of a previous mall turned into small apartments. The first floor had restaurants.

^ This was posted 4 days ago on CNBC =

Here in the Deep South, malls all too often experienced a drop in patronage due to security issues.

None of the YouTube links now take me to Youtube and the video previewed here. This is a new development. Anyone else have this issue?

Nope

That year I was kind of flush but hardly in the high end lux market and did my holiday shopping at NYC stores such as Lord & Taylor, B. Altman, and Brooks Brothers. You could always find a modestly priced present that presented a bit classy.

Speaking of Malls... WEHT to the Dead Malls thread?

^it’s been turned into senior living apartments with restaurants on the first floor.

1987 was the year I moved from the east coast to SoCal, thereby opening up a whole new world of malls in what was arguably the Mall Capital of the World at the time.

R18 I love SoCal malls. Most of them are outdoors with an insular feeling.

Not in the 80s—they weren’t

Pretty soon movie theaters will be defunct, too. I've seen a couple movies recently where there were only a few other moviegoers.

^ Was it still noisy with so few folks there?

The only thing the video didn't show was people openly smoking cigs on the mall benches.

Malls are making a comeback tho

r23 I'd forgotten about that. Yes, the benches in the corridors with the big round ashtrays all over the malls. Crazy to think people used to smoke in malls and it wasn't a big deal.

R24 I'm dubious.

Which mall did you guys grow up in. Pentagon City in northern Virginia basically raised me lol.

I was trying to explain to my niece how we had to go to the mall and look for things in person, wait in line, push our way through crowds and, if we were really hard core, lug some bags out to the car and return to the mall for round 2 in order to complete our list. It was exhausting but meaningful in a way I didn’t appreciate then.

We used to drive the 90 miles to Metrocenter in Phoenix a couple of times a year. It was always a great experience, especially going to the movies (there was no theater in my small town). I particularly remember seeing "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Tron" there. Now it's Hispanic gang central.

My friend's teenaged children love going to the mall. Gives me hope for the future.

Sunvalley in Concord, CA. My mother worked at the Macy's there from the day it opened.

I get most of my clothes from Dillard's in the mall. Also, the food court is decent for quick Asian food.

I like to meet men at a favorite mall. Not for quick restroom encounters but for possible, legit conversations and relationships in

Hawthorne Plaza—

Born 1977: the mall hosted our high school homecoming: three bands played—one each in front of the north, middle and south anchor stores. It WAS amazing!

Died early 1980s: actual it was pretty much over, except for The Broadway (middle anchor) before 1987.

The worst redevelopment project ever in that part of LA County—tearing up an old downtown doesn’t always work.

I wasn't around, I was a mall kid, but I would have loved to see the old downtowns with their small stores and huge classy departments stores with their restaurants.

Anyone shop exclusively at Bi-Mart??

R35 - I also just missed the era of Downtown department store shopping -- in the 80s the malls were lamented as a big step down in the overall shopping experience. So I assume in the future we will lament the fact that actual humans no longer dump your Amazon package somewhere near your front door, and that robots just can't compare to the wonder of those big minimum wage galoots.

I was in Grade 2 when this was shot. Thanks for the nostalgia and memories of my local mall during that time, OP.

2nd grade

Eldergays what was the cruising experience like in malls. I know some of you have some exciting stories.