
Shopping in the 1930s with Heimie's Haberdashery
Special | 4m 19sVideo has Closed Captions
One special store stands strong in the heart of downtown St. Paul, Minnesota.
Heimie’s Haberdashery gives its customers a shopping experience of nearly 100 years ago, a time when the department store served as the cultural hub of a city.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback

Shopping in the 1930s with Heimie's Haberdashery
Special | 4m 19sVideo has Closed Captions
Heimie’s Haberdashery gives its customers a shopping experience of nearly 100 years ago, a time when the department store served as the cultural hub of a city.
Problems with Closed Captions? Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Rewire
Rewire is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
(jazzy music) Yeah, I mean, I would describe it as something that is a traditional men's haberdashery set in the 1930's.
A haberdashery is a way to define an establishment that has accessories for men.
Hats, gloves, canes, shirts.
And so, we play music of the era, we have a tailor's language of measure from that era, we understand cloth and origin of cloth that dates back over 2000 years.
Who told you that?
Who told you we were expensive?
You're wrong.
You can buy a suit from me for 175 bucks, and I bet you didn't know that.
Tailored, from a professional tailor with years of experience.
You can buy a hat from me for $22, and I might even throw in a hat box.
You get free coffee in the back with a cookie if you want one, the other day I gave five shoe shines without charging people.
There's value here, and it's affordable, it's accessible.
The perception is the hard thing.
But perception is something that you'll never be able to change about anybody in life unless you give them a chance, right?
So, if you feel intimidated, or you feel, as a consumer, you walk past my window and say, "I've been walking past here for five years "and never came in," well, change your perspective.
- My advice in terms of improving or enhancing the style of someone is to look for a proper fit.
In terms of fit, the fit of a garment, I think, is extremely important.
On a scale of one to ten, a ten, so we want to make sure that, and or say, "You know what, I think if we took the sleeves up here, if we hem the pants a little shorter, if we taper the legs," and then the same garment is now very clean, very tailored, that's kind of the start of what it will help, you know, take someone to the next level, or get the maximum use out of something that one has.
You cut the garment to the marks that God gave you, and it looks fantastic.
- The women shoppers are always expressing to themselves or to us that they wish there was a store like this for ladies.
And I say, well, there is.
And they'll say, well, okay, it's here.
They buy scarves, we make blouses, we do pants, we do skirts, we do jackets.
We make ladies' executive clothing, too.
It's a neighborhood store, but it's not old-men stuffy, it's relevant because it's experiential, and experience is hard to get nowadays.
It's an amusement ride.
It's a place to come, buy a ticket, get on the ride, experience it.
If you like it, come back and buy another ticket.
You have to go back to what made you great, right?
It doesn't always have to mean big, right?
It doesn't always mean that we can dilute the experience of shopping... shopping, to the point where it's just consumerism.
There has to be entertainment value in what we do, or there's no reason for you to come shop.
Support for PBS provided by: