P. M. BRIEFING : Shoppers’ Strip Show to Vanish

Another Boston tradition, women trying on bargain clothes in the aisles of Filene’s Basement, will fall by the wayside with the settlement of a sex discrimination suit announced today.

Under terms of the agreement negotiated by the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, the retailer will construct a women’s dressing room of at least equal size to the one now used by men. The new facility is expected to open by mid-February.

While women were forced to use the aisles as a dressing room, stripping down to their underwear or slipping on expensive dresses over their clothes, men had private facilities for about a decade.