Page 19 - Pharmacy History 31 Mar 2007

Nostalgia – the shop window
Geoff Miller
The shop window was once the face of pharmacy.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the regular task of doing a window was usually the lot of the senior shop assistant or a contract window dresser was used. The State Branches of the Pharmacy Guild also provided a display service for its members and the cost was shared by the Guild through its membership fees and the manufacturers of proprietary medicines, cosmetic houses and the like.
The materials for the display, which included copious amounts of crepe paper and the show cards etc, were recycled through the participating pharmacies, but as more and more products went open, the choice of items to promote through the displays fell away and the service was wound up.
Figure 1
Figure 1 depicts a classical 1970s window display which Johnson’s Pharmacy in Casino in New South Wales, installed to advertise their Helena Rubinstein agency.
The keen eyed reader will also notice the banner sign over the window advertising Ipana Toothpaste which was one of the first products to defect from being Chemists Only.
Figure 2 – Quo vadis Pharmacy?
The first reaction from pharmacy proprietors was to tear down these signs as a protest, but it was a lost cause, as was the case with so many other products that were advertised nationally especially in the new media of television. Another prominent sign on the shop front is the decal of the logo of the Federated Pharmaceutical Service Guild of Australia.
The Guild Federal Merchandising Service was formed to promote public confidence in the Guild insignia and the pharmacy which displayed it.
Today this logo has been replaced with the Gold Cross, a symbol more akin to those used to identify pharmacies around the world.
Today pharmacy design has changed and the windows are really just another wall to decorate with signage (Figure
2) and in many cases merchandise tumbles out of the entrances and into the shopping mall or other thoroughfare.
Window displays have become a thing of the past.
It’s all about
We need your contributions to
Pharmacy History Australia
We need your contributions to Pharmacy History Australia.
Can you help with stories and photos if possible of Australian
historic pharmacies, family dynasties or just plain achievements of pharmacists who have given to higher service in their communities
or the profession?
Think about this please and phone or email the editor if you have an idea or a question, or just send your offering in the old fashioned way. Geoff Miller 09 9386 6078 or gcmiller@iinet.net.au
volume 3 ■ no 31 ■ MARCH 2007
Pharmacy History Australia ■ 19