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From Denim, to Hosiery, to Woolens: Landau's Hits the Half Century Mark

Matthew Hersh

From Davidson's to Toto's, from the Balt to Urken's, the names that used to be associated with downtown Princeton are history.

But for Landau's, the wool goods store nestled between Forrest Jewelers and Starbucks at 102 Nassau Street, turning 50 does not mean a look back at how Princeton was, but how to adapt to a changing town with changing needs.

This is the same store, after all, that was a major hosiery vendor before making the transition from sheer to shorn.

When Landau's first came to Princeton from Brooklyn in 1955, moving into what had been Wolman's Department Store on Witherspoon Street, it joined a downtown that, at the time, was dominated by mens and womens clothing shops: Langrocks, the English Shop, Bellows, H.P. Clayton's, and Edith's Lingerie (although it actually opened a year later).

So when David and Evelyn Landau moved to town, they had to make sure they were filling a void and at that time, that void was uniforms for nurses and aprons for the waiters and waitresses at Lahiere's and other downtown restaurants including the Balt, Renwicks, Viedt's, and the Nassau Inn.

"This was the opening of the store," said Robert Landau, who, along with brother Henry, is the proprietor. "My parents were selling uniforms because the hospital at that time did not supply uniforms," he said. "I can also clearly remember waitresses coming to us from Lahiere's who needed new aprons and we would sell a dozen aprons that day.

"They were catering to this group who were buying uniforms," Robert said, adding that despite the store's past incarnations in Brooklyn and Jersey City, the only constant in the business' history was change: changing for the demands of a changing environment.
In the late 50s, the store began selling jeans to women who rode horses and enjoyed gardening.

"Heretofore, jeans were sold mainly for western wear and work gear, but people started buying them," Robert said.

Landau's subsequently became the largest Wrangler Jeans account in the Northeast. "We were basically your Gap store in Princeton."

But to appreciate how quickly Landau's changed to adapt to the changing climate of Princeton, one must take a look at its past.

Opened by Robert's and Henry's grandfather Henry Landau and their uncle Meyer Gross as "Gross and Landau" in 1914 in Jersey City, the store ran into adversity when it was razed to make way for the building of the Holland Tunnel in 1917.

The two brothers, however, knew how to capitalize on the situation.
"They were notified in 1917, and they had another 12 months before they had to leave, and, at the time of construction, the only customers that were passing their store were tunnel workers.

"They didn't want to buy fabric, or yarn, or zippers, so my grandfather and uncle started selling overalls to the workers."

So when the business was moved to Brooklyn as the "London Department Store" it had already undergone a dramatic change.

By the time David entered the business in 1936 he saw the store shift gears again, this time from overalls to biking gear. Motorcycling, as it turned out, was the fad of the day in Brooklyn.

"Their major product line was stuff for the bikers — that's who was there," Robert said, adding that the store at this point was heavy into selling biker boots, leather hats and belts. "You gotta sell to who's passing by. Saks Fifth Avenue would not have survived."
The same strategy would work in Princeton, but here, the needs of the consumer posed a significant departure.

As the store moved to 114 Nassau (now the new wing of Micawber Books), "hold-ups," a new version of the stocking (up to that point, people were wearing nylons) were making their way across the Atlantic from England, and gaining popularity in the States.
"My father started selling thousands of hold-ups, he was enthralled and he started importing Pretty Polly hold-ups to the United States," Robert said.

It got to the point when in 1967, Landau's was the national distributor for Pretty Polly hold ups, selling to large department stores like Wanamakers in Philadelphia and Garfinkel's in Washington, D.C.

The Wool Era

Like the overalls in Jersey City and the leather goods in Brooklyn, and Princeton's aprons and nursing uniforms, Pretty Polly had her time.

"The hosiery was done, so what do you do next?" Robert asked. "We became the second largest account for Deans of Scotland," a company selling the once-popular Fair Isle sweaters. "Everyone was wearing one of these sweaters and this became the standard: the way you would wear a Polo shirt," Robert said.

Around the time the sweater fad was waning, the Landaus made a trip as a family to Iceland in 1975, where they returned with an Icelandic woolen poncho.

"We put that poncho in the window, and every other person who came into the store asked about the poncho, put it on, and nobody bought it," Robert said. "It didn't fit anybody, but it had this look to it that people liked."

So, Robert, with his wife Barbara, met with the company who made that poncho to see if adjustments could be designed. They ordered 24 pieces, sold out in two days and at that point, "we knew we had something special."

"It was beautiful to look at, incredibly durable, and functional, and nobody else had it," he said. "It really changed us."

Changed to the point where by 1982 Landau's sold 25 percent of the goods produced by the Icelandic Wool Industry. They opened a store in Manchester, Vt., and opened Landau's Too for children at the corner of Nassau and Tulane streets. Landau's also had a catalog for national sales.

"We developed a whole line, we weren't designers, but we made suggestions. It put us on the map nationally, we advertised in the New Yorker, the New York Times, and the New York Times Magazine.

"Whatever we did with that stuff, people wanted to buy more of it, and we kept expanding."
In 1982, the Landau family attended a reception in New York City for the president of Iceland, Vigdis Finnbogadottir. "We met her and when were were introduced as the ‘Landau's of Princeton,' she responded ‘Oh, the wool family.'"

The wool family indeed.

And throughout the years, while the Vermont store succumbed to neighboring factory outlet stores, and Landau's Too became absorbed into the current store, the family atmosphere has been driving the business. Being good neighbors, Mr. Landau said, is more important than having "chrome this and fancy that."

Even beyond that, "we're down to Earth."

A landau, of course, literally means "carriage" in German, and like their namesake, Landau's continues to roll through the ages.

Landau's will celebrate their 50th anniversary with a sale, starting tomorrow, September 22, serving up Icelandic salmon with Olafur "Ollie the Fishman" Jannson. The store will include sales and specials into October, including items for $50 and $19.55, commemorating the stores move to Princeton in 1955.