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Before high street chains Matalan, Primark, and TK Maxx, consumers had their own high-fashion, low-budget shopping jewel in the crown.

With their must-have garments, eye-catching purple plastic bags and famous TV ads with Status Quo’s hit Whatever You Want as the theme tune, everybody knew What Every Woman Wants.

Founded in 1971, the cut-price clothing chain was the brainchild of retail entrepreneur Vera Weisfeld and her husband Gerald.

Now, the iconic building in Glasgow’s Argyle Street is being torn down.

(Image: SUNDAY MAIL)

With demolition at the B-listed Victorian property, which was built around 1870, already under way, fashion tycoon Vera made an emotional return to her former work place.

The 81-year-old said: “It’s the building that everyone is going to miss.

(Image: Collect)

“With What Everys, we brought fashion to Glasgow at a price people could afford. For me, it’s demolition has been a long time coming.

“It’s with sadness that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will know the story but they won’t be able to point to the building where their grandma and papa’s business first took off.

“My recollection of Glasgow will always be that building being mobbed. The foot flow on that part of the street was because What Every Woman Wants had gone into that part of the building.

“We had a small store on the opposite side of the street before we moved into this beautiful, big building.

“The gentleman who owned the business before us had run an upmarket furniture store and said he had seen more people cross our door in the first 10 minutes than he had seen in the 35 years he had been in business.

“Later, we opened in Coatbridge, in Paisley and all the surrounding areas but it never took away from Glasgow.”

(Image: Daily Record)

Known as What Everys, it quickly became a retail success story with more than 130 stores throughout the UK and a prime flagship outlet in Argyle Street.

At its peak, in 1989, the chain had a turnover of £100million, before the business empire was sold in 1990 for £50million by the couple.

Vera added: “Never once did we open the doors in Glasgow when there wasn’t a queue.

“We found that people used to come to us last but when we moved to that building people would come to us first.”

The building is now being knocked down to make way for a multi-million pound office block after the long neglected site was bought by London developer Osbourne and Co last year.

After hearing the building had been pulled down last Thursday, Vera and her son Michael went to see for themselves but found that the demolition had only partially concluded.

Vera said: “We went to the site and only part of the building was gone but you could still see the ‘W’ of What Everys.

“Michael saw a gentleman working in a digger.

(Image: SUNDAY MAIL)

“He shouted the guy over to ask if he could have part of the sign for me. The man said he remembered the shop as his wife had shopped there and gave me a wave.”

Construction workers promised to check with bosses and will get in touch with Vera to make sure she has a part of the building’s history to keep forever.

The brand, which started as What Every Woman Wants and later changed to What Everyone Wants expanded from fashion to kids bikes to hi-fi systems.

Following the sale of the business, the brand became a national chain after being sold to Brown & Jackson.

However it was then sold to Tradegro in August 2002 but went into administration the following month.

Vera added: “When people talk What Everys, they talk about it being an institution. I’m often asked if I miss it.

“To my husband and I, when we moved to the larger premises, we wondered what we were doing taking on this amount of space in such an upmarket building compared to our little grotty shop on the other side.

That building made our business.”