Then and now: A photo of the shop taken in 1959 and its present form. — CHAN BOON KAI/The Star
GEORGE TOWN: Step into this store along the busy Penang Road, and you will be treated to a wide array of retro menswear bordering on classic, especially if denim is your flavour.
This is Pitchay Gunny which first started here in 1900.
For comparison, Swettenham Pier Cruise Terminal was completed in 1904. The country’s oldest nasi kandar shop, Hameediyah Restaurant, started under a tree in Lebuh Campbell in 1907. The Ford Model T (the first affordable, mass-produced car) came out in 1908. And Gurney Drive was built in 1936.
So, Pitchay Gunny might be holding an unknown record.
Keeping the legacy alive now is the founder’s great-grandson Syed Ahamed Mohamed Ghani, 60.
His great-grandfather named the shop after himself when he registered the business as the 19th century ended.
“He started by selling all things British,” Syed Ahamed said.
From old family stories, Syed Ahamed said Pitchay Gunny was then Penang’s go-to emporium for those who wanted some Made-In-England retail therapy.
Parasols, combs, scissors, smoking pipes; the list was endless and ever-changing, with a focus on items that could be labelled as “fancy personal belongings”.
At the height of the British Empire, Pitchay Gunny was the place in Penang to buy personal effects that would grant shoppers a status symbol befitting the era.
Then came WWI (1914–1918), and it was hard to ship in the fancy goods.
Syed Ahamed was told that his great-grandfather decided to close the shop, tighten his belt and wait for the war to pass.
Events after WWI are lost to history, but when WWII (1939–45) came, Syed Ahamed’s late father told him Pitchay Gunny switched to selling locally-made merchandise, and that marked the end of the plethora of “Made-in-England” goods.
“During the Japanese Occupation, businesses were allowed to operate, but imports of goods were stopped. My grandfather took over and sold local goods. The shop would close for a while when the Japanese sounded air raid sirens,” Syed Ahamed remembers being told.
Syed Ahamed said his father joined the business sometime in the early 50s, which led to a new development.
Denim was first made in the city of Nimes in France around the 1870s and was called “serge de Nimes” then, which simply meant “sturdy fabric from Nimes”. The English shortened the name to “denim”.
In the early 1950s, the advent of shuttle looms made mass production of this fabric possible, and it took the world by storm.
People craved denim-wear, and the retailers at Pitchay Gunny were quick to meet market demand.
By the 70s, Pitchay Gunny became Penang’s iconic shop for the latest cuts in jeans, followed by general menswear.
As the only son with four sisters, Syed Ahamed joined his father in the 80s even though he studied civil engineering.
“In the heydays of the 80s, we had no competition as supermarkets did not sell clothes.
“We sometimes had customers waiting outside our shop for us to open in the mornings,” he said.
The full weight of the business fell on his shoulders when his father died in an accident while on holiday in India in 1991.
Syed Ahamed’s turn at the helm was marked by changes in Penang’s shopping scene.
The 1967 Gama Supermarket became Gama Supermarket and Departmental Store in Jalan Dato Keramat in 1980.
Komtar became the tallest skyscraper in Malaysia in 1988, bringing Penangites the first taste of a glitzy shopping complex.
Syed Ahamed responded by opening more outlets along Penang Road and Komtar but buckled under manpower shortages.
He realised that generations of his customers still loved the Pitchay Gunny outlet in Penang Road, which was there since 1955, so he returned to the shop’s tried and tested strength.
In 2015, he tried expansion again and took an outlet in a mall but closed it after the contract ended in 2018.
“Our customers just like our old shop more,” he mused.
He has good memories, especially when former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi – after retirement – walked into the shop.
“And then there was a billionaire businessman who mentioned us in his autobiography, saying he bought his first shirt here to attend a job interview as a teenager,” he said.
Five years ago, Syed Ahamed’s wife wanted to sell clothing for Muslim women from Dubai, and he allocated a section in the shop to her.
He has four children: two sons and two daughters.
“One son is in IT, and the other is a doctor. Both my daughters run their own cafes,” he said.
He said they would probably hire supervisors when they take over.
“Any of my children who are interested can take over Pitchay Gunny,” he said.
