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Made to measure for success

29/11/2006

FROM the biggest stars to the average man in the street one family clothes shop in the centre of Rochdale made sure they always had a real sense of style.

Seniors on the corner of Yorkshire Street and Baillie Street offered four generations of the town's families the very best in continental high fashion.

It was in 1919 that Sydney Senior arrived in Rochdale and rented rooms above S E Wild's gents' outfitters.

He started in business making made-to-measure suits for men coming home at the end of the First World War.

It proved an immediate success and by 1921 he was able to buy the shop from Hexley Wild and Seniors was born.

For many Rochdalians of all ages it was the place to get fitted out with the latest fashions.

What made Senior's so popular was that, unlike similar companies, it retained its own workroom and personal approach to tailoring rather than passing the work on to a large factory.

Not only that, stage and screen stars and even well-known politicians were known to wander the aisles looking for that stylish outfit.

As Seniors' popularity grew so did its premises.

In the 1940s several neighbouring shops were bought to form one large store.

Anthony Senior joined the business in 1958, when it was one of the most popular shops in town.

By 1960 business was booming to the extent that further expansion was needed, a new ready-to-wear department being set up.

The menswear department closed in 1999 and two years later the ladieswear section was finally shut down upon Anthony's retirement, ending a long and trendy chapter in town centre history.