"Four-fifths of them run charge accounts..." wow!

I certainly do not remember the time period in the first link, but do remember well the SF, Palo Alto and Beverly Hills stores.

While the other two were nice, the San Francisco store was a real institution.  It, along with Joseph Magnin, carried the finest womanswear in town, and the mens goods were not bad at all.  It also had the chicest hair salon, and, perhaps more importantly, was where good looking young women used to work while they looked for suitable husbands.  Many of the current doyennes of SF society worked on the bottom floor of I. Magnin in their youth.

As for the charge accounts, that was pretty standard stuff in SF until the last few years.  Everybody who was anybody had a charge account at Magnins, Trader Vics and Wilkes Bashford.  I am pretty sure Wilkes still offers one, but I don't know how they work anymore.  back in the day, you would be presented with a monthly bill to pay off, just like a grocery store account.  Now they might have a credit agreement with a local bank.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEFDD173BF93AA35755C0A96E948260