Americans, of course, consider themselves the creators of department stores. But they do not need to be palm of priority. Department stores have begun a real, first formed in France, and the first documented large-shop named Bon Marche, located in Paris. French department stores did not sell what is there today, mostly to buy, or clothes. Europe is a very long time conservative in this respect. Clothing to measure, store and even great, just bought the material needed for its production. Fashion for ready-made trousers and jackets were introduced in the United States. So there began a career department stores in such form as we know it today. Great surfaces were divided into smaller stores, where stored large quantities of finished products of knitting. I immediately could tell what a department store from the ordinary store. Indeed, Americans did not tell him shop, but the store - that is, composition. One of the first house was a mark in America Oak Hall in Boston. Annual turnover of the giant reached five hundred thousand dollars. They were, however, U.S. dollar worth much more than the one we know today. Department stores from the beginning been the subject of speculation. They were constructed in order to rent them space for clothing and wholesalers charge for this monstrous rent. Only a huge turnover of trading companies allow their owners to maintain in large commercial halls of the East Coast. Department stores were also characteristic, but right about this feature buildings, construction. Originally constructed them as mere storeyed buildings. Were similar to contemporary office buildings, heavy, massive and squat. Only when the building began to massively used for the construction of cast-timbered buildings, has changed the architecture department stores. Then they became a broad halls, where people strolled freely searching for goods of interest to them. Department stores were doing this incredibly attractive visual objects, people come there just to buy, but also so as to relax and hang out, and - of course - look at other people. Another crucial element of the superiority of the great department stores over small shops in the pioneer period was the lighting. Cast iron, then iron introduced as a supporting structure of the building, allowed for use in large areas of glass walls. Thus, as long as the sun was in the sky, the composition of the interior was brightly lit by its rays. Then, after the invention of gaslight and electricity, stores shone glow at night. Today, big shopping malls feature has not changed much, or may not change at all. They are still shopping destination, meeting place, and even tours of people who somehow want to spend your free time and shopping combined with relaxation.