Obtaining a Decent Bit of Lingerie in Old Shanghai #2 – Go See Cantorovich on Broadway

My first post on old Shanghai lingerie retailers – Horace Beeson – was in the Settlement, south of Soochow Creek. But what if you were in Hongkew and couldn’t be bothered crossing south? then it’s got to be Cantorovich for you down on Broadway (Daming Road), close by the Astor House Hotel (Pujiang Hotel these days). Cantorovich certainly stocked plenty of imported brands – Poirette, Warner etc – and styled themselves a “corsetiere”. the Chinese name of the store was Yue Luen (豫纶洋行). It was run by a certain I. Cantorovich with his wife (who was called Mary) and had been established in the late 19 teens or early 1920s as a general milliners, drapers and outfitters (this advert is from 1930) at No.11 Broadway. The Cantorovich’s were apparently originally from Moscow and were obviously White Russian refugees in Shanghai.

NB: In the 1930s it seems the Canotorvich’s split up. He continued to run the store but his wife, Mary, apparently became quite a ‘woman-about-town’, involved in various shady deals, being squired by various western and Chinese businessmen around, claiming to be a Princess (hardly original!!) and generally being rather louche. Her greatest moment of notoriety came when she was involved with the corrupt Canadian businessman CC Julian who’d been involved in various oil stock related scams in California. She claimed to be Julian’s lover, claimed that she was representing interests who would buy his tell-all autobiography from him. When Julian committed suicide in Shanghai’s Astor House hotel in 1934 she turned up at the hospital too. Quite a notorious ride from selling underwear down by the Soochow Creek (PS: I blogged on the CC Julian scandal here)