Page 9 - Robeson Living Spring 2021

Store Windows of The Fashion Bar

in their lives. She continued to expand the business over the The store’s best advertising were the large picture windows
years and by 1975 the store was about 5,000 square feet and that spawned the entire front of the store. She called it her
had 20 employees. business’s calling card. People would tell her they would ride
downtown to just see the new window displays.
After a five-year courtship, on March 6, 1959, she married Jack
McKee Price. He was the love of her life and they were a great On March 25, 1970 Margaret Spruill wrote in The Robesonian
combination together. They loved to entertain friends and were about the shop’s windows.
always planning some event. They loved traveling and made
several trips abroad during the years. It is possible there were “An Easter Egg tree in a window on Elm Street is drawing peo-
not two more avid University of North Carolina Tarheel fans ple like a magnet. They hang on bare branches of a sweetgum
than the Prices. They were always constant fixtures at UNC tree from our own Robeson County woods. The Easter Egg
football games both home and away. Jack Sr. passed away in tree is the brainchild of Evelyn Price who dresses the figures
2007. around it in a harmonizing color. One week the dresses were
pastel green; this week they are pastel yellow. Just looking in
The year 1960 was an exciting year as Jack, Jr., was born April the window makes spring more meaningful.” Price told Spruill
19, 1960 and later that year she bought her aunt’s interest in that the town’s children love the tree ad often stop in front to
the business. look while they speculate on the number of eggs hanging there.

The store held many fashion shows over the years but there Mrs. Price’s Girls
were also in-house models. Lucy Simmons remembers when No matter the age of the salesladies over the years at the store
she and her husband, Rochelle, moved to Lumberton in 1956 they were referred to as “Mrs. Price’s Girls”. She stressed with
going in meeting Mrs. Price. The Prices were still just dating her employees: “Just try and take care of the customer the best
at that time and often double dated with the Simmons at places way you know how. Be honest and truthful. If a customer has
like the Elks Club. Mrs. Simmons was a tall size 12 and her something that is not flattering to her, we’re going to have
height lent itself to modeling. She was a schoolteacher and something that is”.
since she was off around the holidays she began to model for
the store. She would walk around the store in different outfits While it would be impossible to compile an entire list of “the
and furs. One Christmas holiday a gentleman came in and ad- girls” that helped generations of the area’s ladies some work-
mired the fur she was wearing and bought it right off of her. ing at holidays or summer breaks from college to ones who

Robeson Living ~ Spring 2021 Page 9