There are only a few photographs of the staff employed at the first C&A stores, and as a rule they do not show much detail. This group photograph, however, presents twenty-one individuals, probably employees, in close-up. The staircase in the background of the photo reveals the location of the shot. It is the C&A store De Zon at Nieuwendijk 192 in Amsterdam, which opened in 1906, and so it is quite conceivable that the photo was taken at or shortly after the store’s opening. Another reason for such a dating is the silhouette of the women’s dresses, which can be seen in the picture and corresponds to the S- or Sans-Ventre line (from the French “without belly”), which was fashionable in the early twentieth century. The sales staff in textile stores were of great importance at that time. After all, every sale was preceded by a detailed conversation with the customer. Self-service only became established much later, in the 1950s. In addition to sales staff, the personnel of an affiliated tailor’s shop were also known to work in a C&A store like this and are thus probably also depicted in this photograph. Based on his uniform, the boy at the top right could have worked as a porter or a parcel carrier at De Zon. The gentleman in the hat at the bottom left of the photograph is most likely Clemens Brenninkmeijer (1862–1938) from the second generation of entrepreneurs. He had opened the first C&A store in Amsterdam at Nieuwendijk 193 as early as 1893 and was committed to attracting new customers from the lower social classes. As the burn marks show, the photograph once almost fell victim to a fire.