Astor House: In Fashion

We have been walking further towards the very beginning of Broadway while also taking a few steps back in time to 1929. Turning around, we see a rare view of the west side of the Astor House block on our right.

It's worth to note that the traffic in 1929 is still mostly hand-drawn rickshaws and horse carriages. There is one car turning towards us in front of the HSBC building and there seems to be a tram coming down Seward Road in the very distance.

The buildings in the distance are now a familiar sight if you have been following along with my posts - to the left is the Japanese Post Office and Telegraph Office and on the right is the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank building where Broadway branches off to the right and Seward Road takes a half-right just beyond the bank.

The names of the stores in the center of the block to our right are unfortunately unreadable, but all the way on the right, close to the ground floor buffet restaurant of the Astor, we can see the Maison De Modes De Paris.

This was the Shanghai branch of a fashion house with stores in Hong Kong and Singapore, but it's been surprisingly hard to find much information about an apparently very successful chain of stores and especially about their Shanghai presence.

However, we have one artefact online of what kind of clothing had been created by the staff of this store - a wedding dress from 1919.

For our next story, we leave busy Broadway behind and turn around to head south onto the Garden Bridge.