“The warehouse of sporting goods, king of musical instruments, Queen of cosmetics”
This is the strapline of Bangkok’s oldest department store. In fact, it’s not just the oldest store in Bangkok, but all of Thailand and heading inside the seven-storey building is like stepping back at least 40 to 50 years in time.
Located in the historic neighbourhood of Wang Burapha on the edge of Bangkok’s bustling Chinatown, the Nightingale Olympic department store is one of the most intriguing places we have ever visited in the Thai capital. The first impression is almost instantly of a place frozen in time – packed with ageing stock and devoid of customers. Nightingale Olympic is a far cry from today’s vast, gleaming shopping malls for which the city is now renowned and within minutes of entering, our heads were a wash with many questions. Questions such as how is the department store a viable business, who buys the antiquated items on display, and why has the building not been sold or redeveloped?
In short, the answer to all of the above centres around sentimentality, nostalgia or customer loyalty, and often or not, a combination of all three. To understand why Nightingale Olympic continues to open six days a week from 9am to 4.30/6pm (depending on the day), you must delve into its history and understand the ethos of the family and staff running it.
The history of the Nightingale Olympic department store in Bangkok
It was the striking 1960s modernist facade that first made us want to visit Nightingale Olympic, but the original store was established in 1930 and situated across the road from its current location in two low-key shophouses. It was founded by Khun Nat Niyomvanich. Of Chinese descent, Khun Nat started the business at the behest of his dying mother, who told him to keep the family together after she was gone. In turn, he employed all of his six siblings, along with three of his nephews and nieces, to get the store up and running.
Initially, the store sold cheap cosmetics and clothing products, but customer feedback showed there was a demand for upmarket merchandise, and this led to family members taking buying trips to Europe. Specialising in foreign beauty products, sports equipment and musical instruments, the store soon established itself among the Bangkok elite as the place to shop for exotic goods.
Two of the imported brands – ‘Nightingale’ (a musical instrument) and ‘Olympic’ (a make of sports equipment) were the inspiration for the name of the department store.
What really boosted the family business, however, was when it was appointed as the Thailand representative for the then up-and-coming American cosmetic company, Merle Norman (est. 1931), in the late 1930s/early 1940s. The franchise took off big time and resulted in promotional opportunities on Thai television as well as the establishment of a Merle Norman products-only beauty salon in the current building that would have seen queues of ladies all the way down the stairs waiting for makeovers, new hairdos and massages.
The Nightingale Olympic department store was popular and enjoyed success for several decades, thereafter, attracting not only the Thai elite but also high-ranking government and military officials as well numerous celebrities of the day.
As an aside, the current building is engulfed by its surroundings these days, but back in 1964, when it was built, it would have been a prominent landmark in an area where most nearby structures were still made from wood.
Writing about the downturn of the Nightingale Olympic department store almost seems redundant. The store did not adapt to changing trends, and the rise of the ‘super’ malls in Bangkok from the mid-1980s onwards, combined with the availability of almost any overseas products you can think of becoming more commonplace throughout the country, are the two main contributing factors. Add the fact that the number of older generation Thais who would have been loyal to the store over the years is forever decreasing, and you have your answer as to why the popularity of this retail institution has diminished significantly since its heyday.
It isn’t easy to establish whether the building is still in the hands of the Niyomvanich family or not. Based on a BBC article, which is dated 2018, the store is, or was, run by Nat Niyomvanich’s sister, ‘Grandma’ Aroon Niyomvanich. However, she was 96 when the article was published, and I can’t find any information about her well-being beyond that date. The same article discusses ‘Grandma’ Aroon’s concerns about who would take over. She is/was the last surviving sibling, plus she has outlived future generations and, further down the family tree, most of her great-grandchildren and other younger relatives already have careers of their own.
Yet, the doors are still open and a handful of dedicated staff, dressed in uniform pink polo shirts, still man the sales counters.
Therefore, somebody is managing the store, be it ‘Grandma’ Aroon, another member of the family or even a consortium of staff who have worked there for decades.
Furthermore, when we last visited in March 2023, we witnessed a delivery of several boxes of stock plus, the department store has its own website. It’s a fairly basic one and mainly only features cosmetics by Merle Norman, which are presumably still their biggest seller. The website also includes the banner “If you are interested in the product, please contact us on Facebook”, which does click through to a Facebook page where you can order products.
So, the store is definitely still in business, but it won’t be surprising to learn that the general consensus among online (mainly Thai) articles is that the Nightingale Olympic makes a loss these days. My unsubstantiated theory is that the family own the building outright and, with no rent to pay, low bills (remember just two out of seven functioning floors plus the building has no air-conditioning), and only a handful of staff on the payroll, ‘Grandma’ Aroon, or whoever is at the helm, can afford to keep the store open purely for nostalgic reasons.
As for the store itself, only two of the seven floors are open to the public. On the first floor, as you enter, the right side is given over to sportswear and equipment such as tennis rackets, footballs and sets of golf clubs. Female apparel, which includes an antiquated and rather tarnished women’s underwear section, fills the left side of the same floor. Faded 1970s and ’80s advertising posters, mainly promoting Merle Norman products, along with a dozen or so vintage mannequins, complete the scene. There is a faint layer of dust covering almost everything.
The second floor, which is reached via a sweeping staircase, is where all the musical instruments are on display. The guitars, drums and musical organs all looked entirely usable, which is more than can be said for the treadmills, bum-shaking machines, and other fitness equipment lined up against the front wall of the same floor. Years back, the Nightingale Olympic had a fitness club, charging customers an hourly fee for exercise classes, and the ageing contraptions are relics from that bygone era.
The rest of the building is out of bounds. The Merle Norman beauty salon mentioned above is on the third floor. According to the same BBC article, the parlour is a “perfectly preserved, over-the-top tribute to 1950s femininity and glamour, awash in Schiaparelli pink.” It sounds wonderful, but, unfortunately for us, we didn’t know of its existence before our visit. If we had, we would certainly have tried our luck and asked nicely if we could have taken a peek inside.
And one final thought as to why the Nightingale Olympic department store has continued to survive for more than ninety years. There are many online articles about the store written by Thais. Indeed, I garnered some of the detail for this post from these articles. Translating them into English, each one offered different snippets of information, but one thing they all had in common was an underlying tone of affection for the store and the important role it has in Bangkok’s 20th-century heritage.
One of the articles suggested that young Thais visit Nightingale Olympic in search of retro items – they won’t be disappointed, and perhaps, in this instance, it will be the young who will be the saviour of the old …
Note; Photography is forbidden inside the Nightingale Olympic department store. We asked politely (Kirsty speaks a little Thai) if we could take a few shots using a phone and were given permission.
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