They arrived in stacks; glossy bundles that made their way through the letterbox. Garnet Hill, LLBean, Harry & David – pages decorated with dimensions and dollar signs, they were easily digestible and entirely transactional, with creased order forms bound into the centre. I was six when my family moved to the United States from England in 1994, and catalogues were an introduction to my new home, a cultural portal entered through rows of SKUs, product descriptions, and perfectly styled images.
As a result, I’ve always thought of catalogues as inherently American, a notion that Robin Cherry, author of Catalog: The Illustrated History of Mail-Order Shopping, confirms. “America’s first mail-order catalogue, Montgomery Ward & Co, was founded in 1872 to offer farmers lower prices by eliminating the middleman – ie stores and travelling salesmen,” she explains. Soon after, the Sears catalogue was founded, and the company went on to become the country’s largest retailer, reigning supreme for much of the 20th century (in 1968, the Sears Christmas Book was 608 pages long.)
According to Cherry, catalogues are a “uniquely American proposition” because of their original purpose: to serve a country that was vast and sparsely populated. When I began reading them, they were still a significant retail touchpoint: “The 1990s and, to a lesser extent, the early 2000s were a very prosperous time for catalogues,” says Cherry. They complemented the early days of the internet, providing a better browsing experience than websites at the time.
Through new friends at school, I discovered the American Girl catalogue. Selling dolls that represented various eras of American history, American Girl peddled a holistic, educational experience, with books to accompany each character, and a host of accessories including furniture, jewellery, table settings, and even skincare (complete with cleansing powder, towel, and face cloth, $6). The catalogue itself felt like a gift, richly illustrated and highly specific. I begged my parents for Samantha Parkington, a wealthy orphan from the turn of the century, who wore a prim checked dress and a gold locket. She was elegant and ambitious and, most importantly, she had the best accoutrements. After months of pleading, she was mine.
Though my interest in the doll waned quickly, I devoured the American Girl book series – plot points about Samantha and her découpage habit, Addy’s conch shell necklace, and Molly’s unkind babysitter are seared into my memory more than two decades later. American Girl sold scores of products, sure, but it also sold snippets of lives which, though often oversimplified and reductive, taught lessons and addressed hardship. With the American Girls, I was learning how to become an American girl.
As I entered my tween years and Samantha was relegated to a lifetime of dust-gathering in the closet, a new catalogue took centre stage: Delia*s. Clothing had become the way I expressed my developing identity and I relished the opportunity to browse spaghetti-strap dresses and blue platform flip-flops from the comfort of my room rather than at the mall with my mother (though, it must be noted, she refused to buy me anything from Delia*s). Using glittery gel roll pens, I’d circle platform loafers and Union Jack muscle tees while reading the inspirational phrases and faux-horoscopes printed at the top of each page with seemingly random (and thus subversive) capitalisations: “eat CAke fOr brEAkfasT”, “blAme oTHers”, “soMeonE is ovErwhelmeD bY Your aNimal maGnetisM.”
The Delia*s models exemplified the brand’s cute, confident aesthetic: positive, but not artificial or saccharine; slightly edgy, but never overtly sexy. They were the kind of girls who, in my estimation at the time, would be equally comfortable acting out the duet in the 1998 R&B anthem “The Boy is Mine” with their best friend at a school dance and pulling faces in full snowboard gear before zipping down the mountain. They seemed cool and easygoing in their tube tops and cargo pants. Today, among friends my age, the Delia*s catalogue remains totemic, a relic of the era of lava lamps, butterfly clips, and Roxy board shorts.
Over the past 25 years, the retail landscape has drastically changed. But, though we increasingly shop online, with clicks and taps replacing order forms and circled products, catalogues and branded fliers still appear in my mailbox. To understand this, I turned to Kara Park, senior director at Share Local Media. “There is still intrinsic value in the catalogue,” she explains, going on to note that companies cultivate and retain audiences through both promotional (direct mail) and editorial (catalogue) touchpoints. And personally, she’s an enthusiast of the form. “I love the transportive experience a catalogue can offer– the curation, the rich imagery, seeing products in beautiful settings, telling more of a story versus clicking through endless rows of product images online,” she says.
Once a catalogue reader, always a catalogue reader. To this day, every holiday season, I await the festive editions of King Arthur Baking Company and Williams Sonoma, poring over the perfectly organised sprinkles and myriad varieties of casserole dishes – a far cry from my own haphazard kitchen. But there is one catalogue whose quarterly arrival overshadows all others, whose perusal has become a cherished ritual for me and my husband over the last decade: Scully & Scully. Founded in 1934 on Park Avenue, Scully & Scully sells the type of furnishings one might find in living rooms on the Upper East Side or Palm Beach, where a $5,450 Kennedy Power Lift Recliner or $2,050 Leather Hippopotamus Footstool don’t stand out from the rest of the surrounding luxury. We have never ordered anything from Scully & Scully, but that’s beside the point. The catalogue is pure entertainment.
What particularly delights me are Scully & Scully’s unabashedly florid product descriptions. For example: Sterling Silver Bald Eagle (“America’s national emblem beautifully captured in this majestic and gleaming figurine. Display it with pride in your home or office.” $3,950.) Herend Porcelain Octopus in Shell (“New for 2023. An octopus spends most of its solitary life living in a den, only emerging at night to hunt for food. While a rock or random crevice is a common choice for a den, this octopus has clearly picked the equivalent of a luxury condominium.” $3,375.) Each time we receive a new issue, my husband and I lie in bed paging through, confirming new items we haven’t seen before as I read aloud the more flowery product descriptions – our version of the iconic LL Bean scene from Best in Show.
Having spent the vast majority of my life here, I no longer see catalogues as a way to understand the United States. I no longer yearn for products with the fervour of a child or aspire to the (feigned) nonchalance of the models. My shopping largely takes place online and, occasionally, in brick-and-mortar stores. But catalogues have never really been about shopping for me anyway. As ever, they remain a comforting leisure activity – and beyond that, a reminder that it’s okay to fantasise.
