JCPenney

share your experiences and stories around JCPenney

Most of my school clothes came from there. This was a matter of indifference to me up until age 13. Then it became a matter of major dissatisfaction, because it marked me out as uncool. What I failed to recognize at that time was that I was uncool for reasons that could not be remedied by different clothes.

Bought school clothes there in the '70s. Was it good quality? I don't remember. I think the family shopped there often for various things. At some point I was buying clothes from another chain store in Florida called J. Byrons.

In the snooty 1980s people started referring to it as Jacques Pené, the way people today call Target Tar-zhay.

i remember the only credit card my parents had was from Penny's. Many hours spent Christmas shopping with my mom there.

in those ancient days before Costco/Walmart, we had the trifecta of Sears/Montgomery Wards/JCPenny... I recall school clothes, but mostly going to any of these if my dad needed, like, a tarp or some tools or a car battery. They were largely identical to me, I would go look at tapes & records, bored out of my mind. Payless had a little post office that was open on the weekend

It all seems so fucking long ago

Was it good quality?

The quality was 'good' in the sense of reliable, functional, durable, but unspectacular.

lol out of curiosity I walked into my closest mall's JCPenney just last Monday. A surreal experience. The second floor was the home store, with stuff maybe a level less good than Target's? Unlike Macy's, the store had a sense of suspended time. Who was buying the fake jewelry? Who was signing up for the credit card?

The biggest shock: people still made appointments for family photos.

Penny's sold mopeds & mini-bikes

https://www.myronsmopeds.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1970-Golden-Pinto-Mini-Bike-ad-from-Boys-Life-magazine.jpg

At some point I was buying clothes from another chain store in Florida called J. Byrons.

hell yeah. A notch below JCPenney imo.

is this the place where beck met debra?

https://www.myronsmopeds.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/1978-JC-Penney-Ad.jpg

just last Monday? what you saw there is JCPenney's in its terminal rot phase about to follow K-Mart into oblivion. as for who was buying the fake jewelry, almost no one. that's the problem. there's zero capital investment happening there, bcz you'd be cosmetizing a corpse

At some point I was buying clothes from another chain store in Florida called J. Byrons.

hell yeah. A notch below JCPenney imo.

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, October 22, 2025 4:13 PM

But J. Byrons sold Brittania jeans, which had a cool, slim cut in the late '70s. But no matter, because by 1980 or so I had graduated to Burdines.

the way that Amazon destroyed Sears & Roebuck at their own game - the game they invented - is still a pretty stunning story... they just didn't see it coming, and didn't react quickly enough when they did. Walmart seems to have taken to the online market pretty well... I have no idea where JCPenny is in this

damn those mopeds look so sweet

Sephora has been carrying Penneys on their back for so long it isn't funny.

I think I posted this a while back on the "things you learned" thread, but I was entertained recently to find out that the C in JCPenney stands for "Cash." The guy's actual name was James Cash Penney Jr. Maybe that's common knowledge, but it was new to me. Name like that, you gotta go into retail.

I was born in the ‘70s when you could get a steak dinner for like 5 bucks, but I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how the price of a moped would be $50 less than a car?

Haha, they don't mean the Ford Pinto, they mean other moped makers like Puch

$50 less than competing mopeds is my guess (Puch, Batavus, etc.)

what josefa said

Not sure I've ever owned anything from Penney's - it was too fancy (we were a Mervyn's/Target family) then it wasn't cool enough when I had free money to buy some of my own clothes (Pacific Sunwear, this chain I can't remember that was half skate shop half teen clothes - they had a house brand of wide-legged jeans that matched JNCO inch for inch until JNCO got crazy with it). As an adult they were even more uncool and prices seemed to be bad value.

Haha, they don't mean the Ford Pinto, they mean other moped makers like Puch

Ah thanks

We had k-mart and TGY in town and Mervyns the next town over … and the old school department store downtown, Ford’s, which is wear I got my first bras in 1983. The nearest mall was 30 miles away… a couple to the north, one to the south… there was a Penney’s in at least one of them … I think we got basic stuff there that my mom wasn’t picky about… like towels and dad’s underwear and socks.

all I think about when I hear JCPenney is some WSJ cover story from like 2008 where the CEO was riding around the failing stores in a segway

For much of his career, Mr. Ullman zipped through store aisles on a Segway scooter because of a progressive neurological condition that made walking difficult.

oh geez :/ thought he was just being zippy

(The husband of someone I used to know had a Segway for the same reason.)

Not sure I've ever owned anything from Penney's - it was too fancy

This.

Penney's had grown and spread in an post WWII era when globalization was nearly non-existent and 98% of what they sold was made in America in US textile mills and factories. Back then Penney's was the low end for that kind of stuff. Their most direct competitor was Sears. That's the Penney's I recall from youth.

They tried to go more upscale in the 1980s because the lower end was flooded with super cheap imports and was eating their market share. By then the brand was too established. Nobody could accept the idea of Penney's for upscale clothes. RIP.

Thanks for that explanation, because I never thought of Penney's as being fancy, but I'm coming from a '70s perspective

they not dead yet! In fact, having a big sale

https://www.jcpenney.com/

one look at that website explains a lot about where they are as a company

I used to enter the NJ Path station at 34th st through a JC Penney in the basement of the Manhattan Mall sometimes.

https://christmas.musetechnical.com/ShowCatalog/1980-JCPenney-Spring-Summer-Catalog

I remember ours had a creepy sesame street statue set up

Growing up, the closest one was in Tupelo (1 hour drive), but my mother would take us to the one in Greenwood (90 mins drive), that way would could pay visits to my grandma and my great-grandma for supper. She would take us to "Penneys" every late August/early September for their deep Back To School discounts so we would have a new coat, several new outfits to wear for the school year, as well as underwear and socks. Between these back to school sales, christmas, and our birthdays, these were our only opportunities to acquire clothing that was not made by our mother as that was her trade.

Besides JCPenney, Greenwood is famous for where Robert Johnson met his maker as well as the Tallahatchie Bridge from "The Ode to Billy Joe".

The aforementioned Greenwood JCPenney closed for good in 2020.

I remember Tupelo having two malls for a while in the late 70s and 80s...I think we called them the "Sears mall" and the "Penneys mall."

The album cover for More of the Monkees was taken from a photoshoot the band had done for a JC Penney ad, which they only found out after the album came out. The band was reportedly upset, but I think they looked very groovy.

https://www.rhino.com/sites/g/files/g2000012691/files/styles/square/public/aod/moreofthemonkees_0_0.jpg?itok=zbQvnC0l

The store closest to us went out of business this summer. They weren't a good store to get a whole outfit, but I've bought a few basics like polos, oxfords, and flannels. In August, I was taking my daughter back-to-school shopping and suggested we wander in there. However, by that point, all that was left were fixtures, and a rack with like, random pairs of underwear and bras hanging on it.

I don't have many memories of JC Penney from childhood. We were more of a Sears/Montgomery Ward family, with occasional trips to Hechts when we needed to get fancy.

I may have once had a pair of JC Penney own-brand jeans.

https://www.jcpenney.com/p/stafford-waffle-one-size-mens-waffle-long-sleeve-long-length-robe/ppr5007979958

These are cozy as hell and only cost $25

https://rarewarnerbros.com/2019/06/25/vintage-bert-sesame-street-large-store-retail-display-figure-jcpenney-5ft-rare/

When I was 8 or 9 (late 60s), I was in a "fashion show" at our local JCPenney and ended up in a catalog or flyer. All I remember was it was zero fun and some other kid was telling us all about how coats imported from China had tiny snakes in the seams, intentionally to bite and poison us American children.

hahaha

looking at current most expensive JCP listings on ebay, it appears that in 1979, they had a partnership with KISS, which make up some of the top listed items.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=%22jc+penney%22+%22kiss%22&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_odkw=jc+penney&_osacat=0&_sop=16&_ipg=240

I was just in Penney yesterday, trying on some Levi's. Didn't buy any tho, sorry JCP.

I guess we have exactly one JC Penney store left in my area, but the mall it's part of is a mostly-sunk ship. I haven't been in there in a long time, but I've heard it's mostly empty.

The JCP wikipedia page has this wild anecdote:

In 1940, Sam Walton began working at a J. C. Penney in Des Moines, Iowa. Walton subsequently founded retailer Walmart in 1962.

That would have predated any shopping malls in the area, so I would guess it was a downtown location?