Any of you older girls remember the Catalog days!

[nicole01r]

I just finished ordering a new dress online. When I started ordering online I would fill out the orders and then go through a routine of trying to hit the order button or just delete it until I finally just ordered it. Now just order without any hesitation. Then I started thinking of when I first started experimenting and would love when my mom would bring home all the catalogs from all thee department stores . My brothers would go straight to the toys but I would go straight to the girls clothes. I would tear out the order blanks and fill them out and a lot of the times they would have the entire outfit dress, shoes, jewelry and all on the same page so I would pretend to order everything the model had on.
Then when I finally had my own checking account and a safe address to mail to it all started! I would fill out the order,enclose a check and then go through the same thing of going by the post office and maybe mail it or not until I did it! Now the wait and guessing game. It would take 3 weeks to month sometimes to get my stuff! Checking the mail every day with great anticipation until finally it came. Rush home to try everything on. Success!!
Now you can get anything the next day and you can track I your package almost by the hour! I have been brave and bought 1 dress, a bra and about 5 pairs of shoes in stores a few times but do almost everything online!

[kimdl93]

Oh god, yes. It was something I waited anxiously for each season. I'm not at all nostalgic about the styles of the 50s and 6s, nor some of the torture devices that passed for women's undergarments in the day, but the women's wear section was fascinating nonetheless. Literally the stuff my dreams were made of!

[Sarah Beth]

I could wait for the new Sears and JC Penney catalogs to come out. I would put a finger in the toy section of those big catalogs and then turn to the women's wear section and just enjoy looking at all the dresses and skirts and yes the lingerie, and back then I was much more fascinated by the lingerie than the rest. Then I remember when they went to having separate catalogs for different things and you could go into the store and pick up the catalogs whichever ones you wanted. I would go in and get those special ones at sear and put the tool catalog on top and walk out of the store with them, the same a Penny's but no tool catalog so the men's wear one on top of the others.

After I was marred we would get a lot of catalogs in the mail in various places and some of the women's wear one's came in my name and at first I was embarrassed about that but now I get a woman within catalog that comes in my name and one from blair too.

[Meghan4now]

It's much better now. In the old days, the only thing I knew about forms, etc. Was from the back pages of penthouse. They had ads from Michael Salem. It always seemed a bit cheesy, expensive and just a little creepy to me then. Now you can get better quality stuff at cheaper prices from classier places.

[Christie ann]

I do remember the well worn girls clothes and girls toys section of the Sears catalog. I so wanted a doll house. That wasn't going to happen in the 1960's.

[Stephanie47]

Heck, yes I do. I loved getting catalogues from JC Penny, Sears, et al. The best was the Victoria Secret catalogues that came to our mailbox because my daughter used my credit card there. Alas, the internet is really better.

This morning I got an email from Macy's and went to their offering of six panties for $28. I was looking through the reviews for Vanity Fair panties of the style I wear. I buy two different full coverage briefs. I read on each at least 8+ reviews by buyers who identified themselves as men. It was at least 10% of the total reviews on each. And, buy clicking on the male reviewers "handle" I could follow the link to reviews they posted for bra and dresses, although those reviews did not identify as male. That is something that we did not get from mail catalogues.

[Jaylyn]

I can definitely relate to this thread. I would get all the old ones out of the trash can and carry them to my secret stash out in the old barn and hide them in the wall of the hay loft. I loved Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Penny's. I spent many hours just sitting and looking thru them usually in the hosiery, girdles and bra sections. I fantasized many times about them. I would pull moms old hose, ( usually with runners) her old undergarments that she discarded out of the trash and kept them in the same place. Her slips and hose I would put on and sit looking at the catalogues. There's a good feeling when you move and the silky slip just brushing across those hose.
I ordered my heels and my forms over the net and felt some of the same anticipations mentioned here waiting for them to arrive. I did ask though since we are a rural route if they would put them in a plain warraped box. This small town and knowing the workers and delivery guys one still has to be carefull.

[Linda E. Woodworth]

Yes, I too remember the days of looking through the JC Penny's or Sears catalogs staring enviously at all the feminine finery and wishing I could wear it. I never did get up the nerve to order anything, even when I was out of college and on my own.

Like many of us, I've gotten over much of my phobia's and now just go into the store or on line and buy it.

[Veronica27]

I am Canadian, and up here we used to have the Eaton's and Simpson's catalogues. Both have been defunct now, as well as their stores, for a long time. I still have the final Eaton's catalogue ever published in 1976, and it is quite fascinating to see the fashions. My mother usually had the Eaton's one, which I can remember from about the mid 40's on. I was only interested in the toys back then, but it became my primary source of information about female clothing in my young teen years in the early 1950's. Simpsons catalogue operation merged with Sears at some point, and eventually the whole company became Sears. Eaton's was bought out by the Bay. The Sears catalogue still operates in Canada, but I do most of my searching now on their website. In my teen years, I can remember spending many pleasant hours deciding how I would build a wardrobe, if I had enough money, adding up the cost of the desired items to try to come within my imagined
budgetary "means".

Veronica

[carhill2mn]

My family got the Spiegel and Montgomery Ward catalogs. I would look at the pretty party dresses and shoes for girls and wish that I could have them.

[michellecd9999]

I am in my late 50's so yes, I remember the catalogs. This got me thinking... I think looking through these were a big influence and spark that started my crossdressing. I remember long before I dressed, looking through the catalogs (JCP, Sears, Wards) and admiring the dresses, shoes, etc, my favorite was the lingerie, hosiery and nightgowns. I started dreaming what it was like to look like the models in these catalogs and eventually I put on one of my mom's nightgowns and the feeling was ecstatic! From there I tried hose/pantyhose, slips, bras, then dresses and shoes. I used to fantasize about having to go through a catalog and pick out shoes, dress, lingerie, etc, which my mom (or another female) would purchase and then bring it to me and I HAD to model it for them and try and look as much like the model in the catalog. It is easier to order today online and remain anonymous, but I also buy things in stores (usually in male mode).

[Cheryl T]

I loved the catalogs (and still get some) and spent hours examining the looks.
I also loved having the catalog and being able to order and have it sent to the store to pick up. Some still have that now, but most of it home delivery.

I also loved Playboy magazine. While my friends drooled all over the models and lingerie I did too...but mostly the lingerie :)

[Amy Lynn3]

Girls, all of you bring back many memories of getting those catalogs. I know I looked the ink off many pages in the ladies sections. A thought ran through my mind, as I read this thread. I wonder if the major department stores would be in the financial trouble they are in, if they still produced the large catalogs ?

[Ashley Lyn]

I fully relate.. Spent many hours going thru those thick catalogs admiring the models, but mostly the clothes..
.. bras and panties were my favorite.. stockings too..

[Lea]

I would always look forward to receiving the catalogs.

I would spend hours looking at the clothing. Sometimes I would figure out everything I would need to live full time as a girl. Then I would go to sleep hoping to wake up as a girl. Never worked but I kept wishing.

[Heidi Stevens]

Who said they went away?! My wife still gets catalogs from Chicos, J. Jill, Talbots, Soft Surroundings, Soma, Pendleton .... well you get the idea. She's on line too, but just can't ditch the hard copies. That's fine, I get to browse too!

[Samantha2015]

Some of the first girl stuff I ordered was from the Fredericks of Hollywood catalog.
I don't remember how got the catalog in first place to order from though.
That was in the early 90's and the strange thing is prices for high heel pumps
are about the same today, some even cheaper.

[Cara Lacey]

Ahh, the Sears catalog.
Bras, girdles, and corsets.
I'm getting a little frisky just remembering it.

[nicole01r]

Ah, I almost forgot about trying to purchase my first wig. There was an add in some magazine so I cut out the order form picked the style and color made out my check and rushed to the post office to mail it. I waited desperately for it to come but it never arrived. I checked my acct for the canceled check but it too also never posted to my checking acct. It took About 15 years and the Internet to finally get one. Now I have 3!

[Ally 2112]

My mom always got the Sears catalog for years and of course my favorite was the womens section

[Robin414]

OMG yes! My favorite was the Sears Christmas Wish Book, I'd spend hours reading it as a little kid! I'd switch between the girls section and the toy section while watching TV 😀

[Jilmac]

I did plenty of catalog shopping back in the day. I would write my order, purchase a money order for payment, and have the order shipped to a post office box. Generally. my items would be an exact fit, but sometimes it would be hit or miss. When I ascended from the closet to the outside world, my shopping habits changed. I no longer use catalogs due to obsolecense, but I don't do much on line shopping either. Now I do all my shopping in stores where I can try on my favorites. I walk out with my purchases in hand, no more order forms, no more post office box, and no more waiting.

[Robin777]

Loved the catalogs! I always went straight to the women's section and looked at the lingerie and the clothes.I Always hid the browsing from everyone else. I would have the toy section bookmarked so I could flip to it if someone came into the room. If you were like me you hated going to the boys clothing section when it came time to buy new clothes for school. My mother always told me to pick out something for school. I liked looking at the girls clothes better. To this day I hate buying male clothing. I have more fun at the store going through the racks of ladies clothes with my wife. I miss the Sears and JC Pennys catalogs.

[AmyVanessa]

I remember perusing through the JCP catalog as a kid. Especially the bras, all the pages of them, deciding which were my faves.
I sooo wanted to wear them

[MissTee]

Oh yes! Sears, JC Penney, and Montgomery Ward catalogs were anxiously awaited in my youth. The Sears Christmas catalog was coveted by young and old alike. As young boys we pretended to not notice the women's section in those catalogs, but in private it was a different story.

[L'eggs n' heels]

There was a great one in the late 80s called Mellow Mail. Sexiest stuff ever.

[Jennie2]

Oh yes, it was the only way to view women's clothing, without going to the shops and loitering around the underwear section, I remember spending many hours flicking through the underwear sections and being fascinated by the variety of styles and colours, This helped me through the early years of cross dressing and developed my desire for the lingerie I like to wear.

[Emme]

The largest catalog and public library in our life is the INTERNET! And I love it!

[Adriana Moretti]

careful....you are showing your age...........xoxo

[Marjory]

Very much so! My mom worked for Allstate and would bring home the full editions of the Sear's catalogs and, as with most of us older girls, I would go straight to the girls section and dream.

[Krisi]

The catalogs are still coming in the mail, they are just much smaller and from specialty shops. Paula Young (wigs) is one but my wife gets many with women's clothes and undies.

The Internet is much better, you can look for anything you want. You can't put the old Internet in the outhouse though.

[Lorna]

The catalogues were indeed a rich source of not only photos but detailed descriptions. I learned a lot of useful terms about different styles of dresses, skirts, etc but most of all I liked to read the descriptions of bras and girdles. The writers of those descriptions knew what their women customers might be looking for and for a teenage boy without any sisters it allowed knowledge to be gained about the finer details - underwiring, padding, boning, types of elastic, panels, suspenders - and then to imagine how women and girls would study those descriptions in order to make their choice of underwear. It was some years later before I knew any young women well enough to learn from them about such things.

[CarlaWestin]

We just couldn't wait for the Montgomery Ward Christmas catalog to come out. Thumbing through the toy section was a yearly tradition. And when I had it all to myself there was that alluring lingerie and foundation section. How absolutely fascinating!

[trishacd]

I remember when a new catalog would arrive i couldnt wait to get my hands on it.I think a cd is born with it. None of my friends ever looked twice at a catalog. I never realized how many gurls read them at such a young age.

[Tina B.]

Back in the olden days, if you lived in a small town you lived by the catalog, for us it was Sears and Roebucks. J. c. Penny's and Montgomery wards. And the best catalogs where the Christmas Wish Books. Not only did they have all the toys a small child could dream of, they also had all of those really cool holiday dresses with all the pretty frills and bows that a little boy could ever want. Not only did they fill the imagination with all that could have been, the old ones that the family was done with it, I also found they make pretty good paper dolls, for a boy that could not ask for real ones. I still love catalogs, and we get many of them every month, but I don't make the paper dolls anymore.

[Sharon B.]

Learned how to measure myself for all of the woman's lingerie, I remember my older sister coming by the house one time when our parents were on vacation and I had the house to myself for a week or a few days. I called in and took a sick day, stayed home and dressed as a woman all day. She came by to check on me and found me dressed as a woman, she had to ask how I knew what sizes to buy and when I told her I found everything I needed in a JC Penny catalog. She told me that I shouldn't look at anything in those catalogs.

[Kate Simmons]

Heck I used to order from the Michael Salem Catalog. The only place you could get CD/TV styff back in "the day". ;):)

[Mink]

Victoria's Secret catalogs / catalogues! ... getting them in the mail 2001ish and on was so groovy... was so nervous about always making sure to check the mail so I would get it and not be caught! hide it under my jacket or whatnot! oh god!

they were so lovely back then... they still have good stuff now but too much changed around 07/08ish with that PINK crap (if you LOVE pink so much why are your sweatpants that say so GRAY? bleh!)

though now and even back then there was too much dang focus on the non-lingerie stuff... the clothes before and the sporty stuff now (or swim!) etc...

it bothered me when a sexy LINGERIE catalog would have next to no sexy lingerie in it!

like what the hell!

plus those early girly days of some of the models... Adriana Lima just starting out! getting big! then waning and Miranda Kerr stepping in!

then it was Candy Ice / Swan Pool! etc

then things just went nuts!

[Candice June Lee]

Wasn't old enough to order from them but I remember Montgomery wards and sears and roebuck catalogs. Actually I got a wards catalog in the mail a week ago. Thought they were out of business.

[LindaC]

Not only do I remember, but when I was 9 or 10, had a neighbor who wrote copy for Alden's. She always had pics(and samples)laying around. She paid me to deliver her work to the Alden's warehouse in Chicago.

[kathy chelan]

In my teen years, many moons ago, there were 4 major catalogs my mother made sure to have always on hand, as we were in a small town in southern New Mexico then. Sears, Monkey Wards, Penneys, and SPIEGEL's. There was always at least 3 issues a year back then---Fall &
Winter; Spring and Summer; and The Christmas Catalog. It was a shock when they started to have to charge for them after many years, but you got it refunded with your first order.

[BLUE ORCHID]

O'yes, Those were the days we always had the Sears, Wards, Penney's & Spiegel's catalogs at home.
I couldn't wait to look at through women's foundation garments pages.

There were Wards and a Sears catalog stores located not far from home I got my first two pairs of forms
through the Wards catalog store. Sears had a catalog/clearance store and I got many many women's
foundation garments and many skirts and tops.

Back in the day wards also had wigs.

[Lacey New]

Oh yes, I sure do remember the Sears and JCP catalogs. They were wonderful with full color pictures and sizing information. I would sneak time to look at the lingerie section for hours fantasizing about which panties, bras, and garter belts I wanted. I also remember when your store credit card bill would come with little inserts advertising something. It was not uncommon for one of those somethings to be an item of intimate apparel. And that was how I bought my firs pairs of panties.

[evadan]

I, too, loved to peruse the Sears and Pennys catalogs. I learned alot especially from the Sears catalog. In my late teenage years, I actually ordered some items from Sears and picked them up at their main distribution center in LA. I bought a black garter belt, waist cincher, stockings and 3" wedge sandals. Not sure if I bought a bra? It was agonizing sitting in the waiting room as they picked my order, then read it off to me. But so worth it! It was so much more challenging to cross dress back in the 70's and 80's!

[Jill_cd]

I remember taking a crazy chance and ordering a Frederick's of Hollywood catalog. I was...junior high age. I used my last name, but a fictitious first name, of course. My parents and sisters just thought the post office made a mistake. I loved those catalogs. The stuff dreams are made of: high heels, stockings, and lingerie.

[Brenda Freeman]

Loved when the catalogs came just before Christmas, great memories sitting by the tree looking thru Montgomery ward sears penneys. Loved the lingerie section girdles nylons garters slips, dresses. Wish santa brought me what I really wanted but was to afraid to put it on my list, I did eventualy try on my moms girdle with garter snaps and nylons knew right away how they worked, what a life changing event, scary back then wonderful today!

[Marcia Blue]

I lived for the Sears, JC Penny, And Monkey Wards, catalogs. Spent hours upon hours, wishing and hoping to someday own what I was on the pages of the women's sections. I also learned some sense of style. How it changed and then reverted back and changed again, over the years.

[JoanneB]

Ah yes!! I loved looking at all of the lingerie and wished that I could somehow buy many items. My wife gets the catalogs from Woman Within and Roamans, but it just isn't the same. But,I am so fortunate that my wife will order anything that I want from these catalogs.

[Mink]

Monkey Wards?!!

I thought they shut that place down!

[sometimes_miss]

I ordered nearly all of my early crossdresser clothes from catalogs. Sears & J.C.Penney were the biggest. The specialty CD catalogs were more drag queen clothing. For the first few decades of their existance, Lane Bryant was only an option if you wanted to look 50 and fat, they featured bright neon polyester stuff with patterns that would blind you. Today, they have a lot of nice things as well.
Even Fredericks of Hollywood carries plus sizes now. I have one, one very sexy, beautiful dress that I'm proud to fit into, and like real girls, like to think that I look as good as the woman in the catalog picture. That's probably one of the selling points of catalogs too; that we get to pretend we look like the lady in the picture. Because if we had to try everything on in a store with a mirror that reflected reality, a lot of us would just shudder, shake our heads, get back in our own clothes and look for a place to drink and forget reality.

[alison301]

I loved doing this when I was younger and when I got my first place of my own, used to order stuff, just to try and then return. They never seemed to bother and they always sent a return label so postage was free.

[Lacy PJs]

The thing I probably remember most about the catalog era was the JCPenney Christmas Wish Book. When I first started to paying attention to such things, there were probably 6-8 pages of really nice, "special" sleepwear. Slowly but surely, the number of pages dwindled until the last couple I remember seeing didn't have any at all. As so many others have said, those were the days...

Lacy PJs

[chinabrown]

There are so many CD's/TS in Hollywood and it's only embarrassing to go shopping in guy/drab mode in Hollywood.
The only other place like this but better is San Francisco.

We have the original sears here and I use to look at the lingerie and support clothing in the catalogs like girdles and bra's.

[BillieJoEllen]

I used to love looking at the Sears, Penney's, Wards, Spiegel and Alden's catalogs and I bet you can guess which sections I used to look at. The first item I ever purchased was a pair of flats from Montgomery Wards. They were navy blue. Since I was living at home I was very afraid my mother would see them. She didn't and I went through the same scenario a few more times before I moved out. Wards became my go to store because of the styles they offered and the fit of the dresses. I miss shopping like that.

[Nancie64]

I am going to try to posts couple of pics of the good ol days. Alden's, 1977, I always wondered how they got away with this. It is an awsome pic and that is why I kept this for38 years. I pull this out ever now and than and wished I looked like one of these. The one in the center with her reflection in the mirror is my favorite. But then they are all great'!!!!'!!!!!!!!

[chinabrown]

then you will loo like a pinup model

[Maryesther M.]

In the pre-internet days I lived in Germany and there the catalogue was a very popular method of mail-order shopping. I used them to acquire girly things, once I found out what my size was in Continental numbers.

M.

[brynnewilliams]

I used to obsess over the JC Penny catalog! I loved the fashion of the 80s and 90s growing up.

[Madilyn A.]

The Sears, Penny's and Wards catalogs introduced me to the wide world of lingerie..

[Sarah V]

Oh...so many pleasant adolescent memories flipping through the Sear's, JCP, and Montgomery Wards fall and spring. I was certainly coming to age as a little girl during the '80's when big hair, big shoulder padded dresses, and esp. aerobic dance wear were all the rage!! Such pleasant memories looking over stuff I just dreamed to own back then!! And as a normal male kid, the Christmas catalogs were not bad either!!

[avant1465]

Growing up in a small and remote New England town... the Sears catalog was the closest equivalent we had to a "store." I hope that no one in my family noticed that the pages of the lady's underwear section were all dog-eared within a week after we got our quarterly catalog.... (and it was in the bathroom!!!!)......