Tales of WAGS, fashion and a talking tree

Bruce the Spruce wasn’t the only celebrity who drew shoppers to H. C. Pranges in the 1960s.

The Packer wives did too.

An elegant department store with a fifth floor restaurant that looked out over the Fox River, H.C. Pranges boasted a talking tree that greeted holiday shoppers. Bruce the Spruce answered kids when they talked to him. He terrified me, but he also drew kids and their parents in from all over Wisconsin. Bruce was an evil genius as marketers go.

A far more genteel marketing effort took place annually in the store’s Terrace Room. There, members of Vince Lombardi’s other team, the players’ wives, walked a makeshift runway that ran the length of the restaurant. As they modeled the latest fashions, shoppers took note. Many rode the escalators down a few floors and purchased those same items on their way out the door.

An enjoyable evening out for the ladies proved to be an excellent marketing technique for the store.

For most of the Packer wives, the fashion show was a lark. None of them saw themselves as influencers. They were just young women, flattered to be asked to model some clothes, and happy to purchase those items at a discount.

Live TV was just starting to become mainstream in the early 1960s, and, of course, social media didn’t exist.

Still, the local news covered the event, and women made purchases based on what the Packer wives modeled.

As an influencer, Bruce the Spruce was a singular tree. Trees today mostly keep to themselves and I’m not sure any of them talk anymore.

But the legend of the Wives And Girlfriends only grew.

Though they didn’t realize it at the time, the Packer wives of the 1960s became the first generation of WAGS. They learned how to conduct themselves with style and grace in a spotlight they never saw coming.

And they had a lot of fun doing it.

For more stories of the Lombardi Packer wives, check out our new book and podcast, Lambeau Ladies – the Boundary -breaking women behind Lombardi’s Packers.

You can find more information here: https://www.lambeauladies.com/