This seems to be the case, I have a store that I downloaded off the gallery that has no cc in it, but it has mannequins that were clothed pre-Cottage Living. When I try to download it from the gallery as it was built with the mannequins clothed it crashes the game to the desktop in and unmodded and cc free vanilla game.
I then downloaded it to the game unfurnished and added back all of the Get To Work items it had in it previously, which were the mannequins I added all 8 available to make sure it wasn't one type over the other, a cash register (The Bizoleans Cash Register) and the desk that came with Get To Work that the cash register snaps to "The Homely Retail Counter". I then saved the lot and downloaded it with the undressed mannequins into a new save, it placed fine. I then had Bella Goth buy the shop so she could dress the mannequins. After the mannequins were dressed I again saved the shop and downloaded it into a still different save, again with the mannequins dressed it placed just fine. So according to my tests the original shop Chanel Store by paula_marie008 which has mannequins dressed in only official Maxis content clothing mostly base game and Get To Work outfits prior to Cottage Living crashes the game but if I download it unfurnished add the mannequins back and redress them again in only official Maxis content clothing and resave it I can again download it without it crashing.
I did try it with mods and cc too, and the results were the same. I had to download it unfurnished, and then redress the mannequins and resave it to make it placeable without crashing my game.
