Ferkai András: Shopfronts - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1996)

Recently built shopfronts

(FROM 1980 TO THE PRESENT)

It would be unfair to consider only the negative aspect of the changes that occurred in the 1980s. There were promising signs visible in the world of cooperatives and small- scale businesses. The appearance of the first S-Modell fashion shops in 1981 was a real event. As opposed to the limited choice offered by state-run outlets, these new small outlets sold innovative and trendy clothes and limited series fashion items. Their stylish furnishings, shopfronts and, not least, their polite service enhanced their attraction. All this, together with the pleasant background music played in these shops, was the first indication of the arrival of Western-style consumerism in Budapest, the capital of the “happiest barracks” in the Eastern bloc. It was also something new that the S-Modell chain and its shopfronts were given a professionally uniform design. (Professionalism was a rare virtue in Hungary in the era of “botching away”, an activity in which the entire population was involved.) Architect László Gergely and interior designer László Zobor, who

“S-ModelF fashion shop at 15 Andrássy ót, VI

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