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Originally Posted by Retired_in_Texas
Sadly, you are 100% correct. There is no "class" or "elegance" to be found. Both died in the 1970s when the motion picture industry shifted from portraying almost bigger than life "elegance" to films that depended upon outlandish special effects to produce box office results. When the "Star" system in Hollywood died so did motion pictures that motivated society to seek what was portrayed in the films, and with that death the country became a wasteland of "Blah."
Your local Target can only be considered "elegant" if compared to a resale shop! One doesn't really see any elegance today even if walking along the fabled Rodeo Drive and it is for certain there is today no elegance to be found in building design, home design, and automobile styling.
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In addition to the design, the fixtures, and the staff, what made stores of this era (and into the 1950s) so elegant was the minimalist approach to merchandise display on the sales floor. In stores of the caliber of I. Magnin, Bullocks Wilshire, or Neiman-Marcus in Dallas, very little was actually on display - only a selection of the merchandise. To find something in the correct size, the customer had to ask a sales associate, whose job it was to "sell" the customer on what he or she was seeking and more. On the really elegant floors of these stores, there was no merchandise on display at all. it was modeled for the customer under the supervision of a sales associate who, ideally, knew the customer, her tastes, her size, and what her price range was. Now, everything is just slapped out on racks or, worse yet, on tables for people to paw over. I'd rather shop on the internet.