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We’ve known this day was coming for some time now, but it’s still going to be surreal not to see Weir’s Furniture at its usual post on the corner of Travis and Knox. It’s been there since owner J. Ray Weir first opened the store in 1948. The store will close on February 2 to make way for a 12-story office tower.

We won’t have to mourn Weir’s entirely. The traditional furniture store has worked closely with the local developers behind the 12-story project, and plan to reopen in an even larger street-front retail space in the next two years. (They’re also working to protect the façade of the former Highland Park Soda Fountain.) Plus, it will be business as usual at Weir’s other smaller locations in Southlake, Plano, and Farmers Branch.

And yet, even with Weir’s planned return, the whole thing still stings. Knox District has changed a great deal over the years (feel free to revisit this D Magazine post from the ’80s for a wild retail throwback), but the most recent changes have gone beyond tenant turnover. One of the most attractive things about the Knox-Henderson area has always been how different if feels from other Dallas neighborhoods — and the fact that pedestrians actually use the sidewalks. Quaint, single-story storefronts giving way to towering multi-use developments, even ones that are working to preserve history, will be a notable change.

Clearly, Weir’s impending closure has sparked a bit of nostalgia in us, so feel free to join us in a walk down memory lane via this post’s slideshow, and be sure to take one final walk through the store as we know it before it closes Saturday.

With apologies to the Dallas Cowboys, the most popular pastime in this part of the world just might be shopping. The Dallas-Fort Worth area leads the nation in shopping centers per capita and ranks among the nation’s Top 5 with about 460,000 retail workers.

Perhaps it started with charismatic merchant Stanley Marcus, maybe it owes to something else, but, this former trading post on the Trinity River has inexplicably grown into one of America’s shopping superstars.

We all know, of course, that the internet set off a slow-moving earthquake under the traditional retail sector. The rapid rise of e-commerce in the past decade or so means more of our shopping is being done from home—or, data tell us, from work. It’s quicker, often cheaper, with wider selection and no traffic or parking hassles.

As consumers in DFW and the rest of the country shift more of their buying on-line, we wondered whether an unlikely brick-and-mortar superstar can transition to an e-commerce superstar.

Let’s start by taking stock of the region’s e-commerce industry. Among the 20 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, DFW ranked fifth, with 10,056 companies operating in the e-commerce space in 2016, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. These companies employed 384,000 workers, fourth in the nation. Payrolls at DFW e-commerce firms exceeded $20.4 billion, seventh among MSAs. The North Texas region’s e-commerce sector is the largest in Texas.

The first time I saw Serena Williams play, I cried. It was 2009 and I was in NYC for a trademark and copyright seminar. Bored out of my mind during one of the sessions, I decided on a whim to see if I could get a last-minute ticket to the U.S. Open. The heavens shone down upon me, and I scored a loge seat for the night matches in Arthur Ashe for like $100. I hopped on the 7 Subway to Queens, found my seat, they dimmed the lights, and, as the Black Eyed Peas’ newly released single “I Have a Feeling” blared over the sound system and the spotlights chased each other around the arena, Serena took the court. The crowd went wild, and I sobbed like a 5-year-old meeting Elsa on a unicorn made of candy. That song still makes me tear up every time I hear it.

That was the same year that Serena threatened a line judge with physical harm, which I wasn’t cool with. But I soon forgave and forgot, because, in the end, she always gives more than she takes, to both the sport and the world at large. I haven’t missed a U.S. Open since. This past Labor Day weekend, I hovered behind the windscreen of the practice court as she sat just feet away on a bench, laughing with her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, during a water break. I figured that was the closest we would ever be, and I was fine with that.

Then I got an invite to the VIP launch event Saturday night for her Great Collection at Neighborhood Goods, in Legacy West. Yes, that’s right: the GOAT has gone beyond 23 Grand Slam wins and a Nike catsuit controversy and the Beats “Queen of Queens” video endorsement and marrying that Reddit guy and motherhood posts about teething and being the newest board member of Survey Monkey and showing up to gal pal Megan Markle’s wedding in Valentino trainers to personally stock and style the shelves of a small pop-up shop in Matt Alexander and Mark Masinter’s new take on a department store.

In Dallas.

And so, of course, I went.

When it comes to dress shirts, men are often forced to sacrifice functionality in the name of professional appearance. Mizzen+Main CEO Kevin Lavelle figured that by substituting performance fabrics for cotton, he could counter many of the undesirable aspects of the traditional button-down: the tendency to wrinkle, untuck, and put perspiration on display.

“When you’re working hard, our shirt’s going to move with you,” Lavelle says. “It’s never going to restrict you, whether that’s putting a piece of luggage in an overhead bin, running to the train, running to your car—and that’s absolutely essential for our guys.”

When we caught up with Lavelle around the recent opening of the brand’s West Village flagship store, he could not have been more enthused. “Dallas is our home base,” he says. “This is where we launched. This is our headquarters. This is us: Dallas.”

I was a kindergartner at First Baptist Academy when I first saw Neiman Marcus’ display windows. At that time, in the ’90s, the academy shared space with First Baptist Church, in downtown Dallas. Now the school is in East Dallas, and I’m a visual historian pursuing a Ph.D. at SMU. But the windows remain.

Every weekday morning throughout my grade school years, as my parents or my grandfather turned their car onto Ervay, I paid attention to the left side of the street. The corner of Ervay and Main was where the magic happened. There I would find scenes of the opulent and the avant-garde, with mannequins styled in evening gowns, cocktail dresses, wedding gowns, tailcoats, tuxedos, and tailored suits. There were bright colors, lush fabrics, and accessories that sparkled. When formal and cocktail attire were not being advertised, there were clothes on display that I imagined would be worn to church, high tea, or even a royal wedding: hats and knee-length, A-line dresses for women and morning suits for men.

The mannequins were only part of the show. Neiman Marcus gave equal attention to the environment, creating scenery that coordinated with each garment. One could not only envision wearing the attire but also learn under what circumstances the clothes could and should be worn. It was all a beautiful lesson about a certain type of excellence: namely, how to be appropriately adorned for life’s most exquisite occasions.

The retail industry no longer gives physical stores the opportunity to be the sole educators of their clientele or the general public. People can now watch fashion shows in real time on their phones, get styling tips from YouTube and Instagram, and shop from home. Neiman Marcus has not been immune to the struggles of a changing industry and is trying to bounce back from its own specific financial challenges, which include long-term debt and liabilities in excess of $5 billion resulting from leveraged buyouts in 2005 and 2013. Despite these setbacks, the luxury brand reported its third consecutive quarter of sales gains in June. Part of that success comes from Neiman’s increased online sales. However, the store’s physical presence—which helped establish its legendary reputation—is still contributing to the brand’s success in new and surprising ways.

When I last spoke with Regina Merson, the one-time bankruptcy lawyer who loves a bold lip, she was working around the clock to get her makeup line Reina Rebelde off the ground. She told us—and I can’t remember if this was on our BraBurner podcast (RIP) or when we got tequila tipsy after the mics went dead—that running a start-up was so hectic, some days she only had time to eat a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos.

But Merson is proof that hard work pays off, especially when you have a product that fills an empty niche, which in Reina Rebelde’s case is makeup geared toward Latinas (my fave lipstick is an electric red called “Brava,” which translates as “bitch be angry.”). Last week, Target announced that it was picking up eight new brands, totaling 150 new products, available in select stores. The internet went wild. Not only are the eight brands made for darker skin tones (inclusivity!) but they’re also indie lines run by women (hey ladies!).

Back in the fall of 2016, after Forty Five Ten opened its (literally) gilded downtown doors, I kept hearing excited whispers about a particular piece of décor: a rug decorated with private parts. Rumor had it you could find it in a bathroom, but after popping into several water closets to no avail, I finally walked up to a saleswoman and quietly asked where I could find the “penis rug.” Like a true professional, she directed me to the men’s floor without batting an eye. She didn’t even correct me and point out the lady bits.   

The rug, commissioned in the Brian Bolke era, represents what I appreciate most about the store. It’s high-end, but with a sense of humor, and a somewhat twisted one at that. (Did you see the $3,800 “scented coq“?) That’s why, when we were putting together our list of the 52 Things Every Dallasite Must Do, I suggested using the anatomically adorned rug in the feature.

If you’ve ever tried to reference Forty Five Ten, and accidentally found yourself mentioning TenOverSix — or vice versa — you’re not alone. It happens sometimes! Those number names are hard. Remember when Forty Five Ten’s TTH used to be Five & Ten? What a time!

All of this number talk is to say that if you’ve ever second guessed yourself when it comes to referencing the bold, black-painted downtown Dallas department store or the newly Miami-based concept store just across the street, you’re about to be even more justified in doing so. (Although you were totally justified already — those number names, man.)

In another big move since Tim Headington acquired Forty Five Ten in 2014, Headington Companies has purchased TenOverSix, and appointed Kristen Cole, who co-founded the store with her husband Joe Cole in Los Angeles in 2008, as the president and chief creative officer for both Forty Five Ten and TenOverSix. 

Every now and then in this modern-day world, you come across a piece of content and try to fathom how nobody caught the problem before publishing to the masses. There’s the whole Pepsi debacle, and this particularly creepy Bloomindale’s holiday campaign. Swedish retailer H&M recently ran into some pretty serious trouble over their decision to have a young Black boy model a “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” sweater.

Street-style star and cofounder of Dallas-based The Tot Miroslava Duma may have a slightly lower reach than the above brands, but her 1.6 million Instagram followers (nothing to sneeze at) did witness a similarly poor decision while viewing her Instagram Story on Monday night.

Duma, who is currently attending Couture Week in Paris, shared a photo of flowers with a note from Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko that read “To my [N—] in Paris,” a nod to a 2011 Kanye West and Jay-Z. Apologies were quickly issued. (Sergeenko’s original, rather convoluted post has since been deleted, but you can read it in full here.)

In a city teeming with big-box stores and franchises on every corner, we wondered: are there any local places that started out as a family business decades ago and still operate under the same principles, no matter how large they may have grown? Turns out the Dallas area has dozens, if not hundreds, of thriving establishments built and run by generations of families. Some have been around 20 or 25 years; many have operated for nearly a century. Some have changed ownership but never moved far from home. All are still committed to the handcraftsmanship of their founders. They’ve got the callouses to prove it.

Hatco

Jay R. Rury Violins

The Maddox Shop

Civello’s Raviolismo

Deno’s of Highland Park

Vera’s Bakery

Neon of Dallas