Fashionably Late. Olivia Goldsmith

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СКАЧАТЬ No one else looked too good, either. Then, before they began to watch shoppers, Karen suggested they check out the stuff made by NormCo. She knew they produced the Bette Mayer mass market line. A salesgirl said they’d find it on the fourth floor.

      The floor was enormous, without many salespeople. They looked for more than ten minutes for the Bette Mayer department and found it, at last, after being misdirected twice. (Of all department stores, only Nordstrom’s still really trained their staff to help.) Karen sighed and finally found the Mayer stuff. Bette was an uninspired designer who had made her name by being the first to bring stonewashed silk to the masses. But her silhouettes were predictable and boring: the same old blazers and coordinates with the only change the size of the lapels or the padding in the shoulders. Karen hadn’t bothered to look at it in years, and only did it now because she wanted to see what NormCo produced. Back to back against two racks she and Defina began snapping hangers and moving through the clothing. ‘Eeuw!’ Defina said as she lifted up a jacket. ‘Look at the interfacing on this.’

      The jacket was a mess. The lining of the sleeve clearly bagged out below the cuff and the interfacing at the chest was already bubbled. Paco Rabanne had once said, ‘Architecture and fashion have the same function. Now I am an architect of women.’ Well, the house that Bette built wouldn’t shelter any female! Karen reached for the price tag. Ninety-nine bucks! But even for less than a hundred dollars, the jacket was no buy. After one trip to the dry-cleaner it would decompose.

      ‘Look at this,’ she said, holding up a scoop-neck blouse. It was coordinated tonally to the blazer, a bright green against the blazer’s darker green. There was a lot of labor in it: there were sleeve plackets, two back pleats at the shoulder line, and the buttons were self-covered and fastened with loops. But it was made of some polyester-based blend that had a ghastly feel. What had happened to Bette’s stonewashed silk? This would be hot to wear in warm weather and chilly in cold. ‘Eeuw. Sleazy.’

      ‘Creepy,’ Defina agreed, touching the goods.

      ‘Flimsy.’

      ‘Sleazy, Creepy, and Flimsy. Weren’t they three of the seven dwarves?’

      Karen didn’t bother to respond. She thought of Chanel, who had said, ‘You know you’re a success, in fashion, if certain things are unbearable.’ This was unbearable. Would NormCo try to do this to her stuff? Karen picked up the price tag instead. Twenty-nine bucks. Jesus, how could they do it for that price? ‘Where was it made?’ Karen asked Defina, indicating the blazer with her chin. While Defina looked for the jacket label, Karen found the origins of the blouse.

      ‘Made in the USA,’ she said, surprised. At least Arnold would be proud if she did a deal with NormCo. He was all pro-US workers. But could she be proud of an association with Wolper, NormCo’s CEO? She’d have to insist on an anti-schlock provision. Did Robert-the-lawyer have one in boilerplate?

      ‘This piece of crap is from here, too,’ Defina said. ‘I thought everything in this price range had moved offshore.’

      ‘Well, no labor costs abroad. My dad says they just chain people to the sewing machines and throw them a little raw meat once in a while. Of course he’s a well-known pinko.’ But, as they went through the racks, they found that most of the Bette Mayer clothes, though a combination of cheap and shoddy, as well as impractical, were made in the USA. ‘How can they do it so cheap?’ Karen asked.

      ‘Beats me.’

      Karen had been wrestling with the reality of the couture business since she opened her doors: the vastly expensive custom-made ensembles for the very rich are not the profit-making end of the business. It is hard to believe that a twelve-thousand-dollar evening gown in peau de soie is a money-loser. But it is usually true. The wealthy women who shopped for custom-made clothes actually cost the designers money. Karen was only going to make money the way the other designers did: by selling cheaper goods to the mass market. It seemed like one of those nasty ironies of life: it was the middle class that was soaked for profits and that actually underwrote haute couture. As Arnold’s daughter, Karen had never felt comfortable with the deal. But she loved her work.

      Now she looked at the shoddy clothes. ‘Who’s designing this shit?’ Karen asked rhetorically.

      ‘Well, I can see it ain’t you, baby. I wonder if Bette even looks at it? Even she isn’t this bad.’

      Karen shrugged. There were fewer and fewer designers who understood how to cut. It was all about perfection of line and of material. The trick was to tame it but keep it alive. This stuff wasn’t just dead, it had never lived. God, she’d hate to have her name on something so disgusting. ‘What else does NormCo do?’ she asked.

      ‘Don’t they do Happening?’

      ‘Yeah, I think so. Let’s go check it out.’ Happening was a fairly new line of jeans and casual wear. For two years it had flown out of the stores, then NormCo had bought it last season.

      They wandered around the sixth floor. Karen was starting to feel hungry, but it was way too early to think of lunch. Maybe brunch. That reminded her of Westport. ‘Hey, Dee …’

      ‘Hey, yourself.’

      ‘Want to come out to Westport for brunch this Sunday? Bring Tangela?’

      ‘I was wondering when you’d get around to asking me out to see Jeffrey’s house. But to eat?’ She paused to consider. ‘Karen, I love you but you’re a cripple in the kitchen.’

      Karen frowned. ‘Don’t mock the afflicted. Just say I’m culinarily impaired. Anyway, don’t worry. I’m bringing it all in from the city.’

      ‘Honey, in that case, it’s definite.’ Defina gave Karen a big smile.

      It took them another ten minutes to find Happening and ten more to go through the racks. The news wasn’t good.

      ‘Well,’ Defina said, ‘what they lack in design they make up for with lousy goods. What’s happened to them?’

      ‘NormCo?’ Karen asked. She knew that at the low end the basic rule of business was to try to do what the others in your price bracket were doing – only a little bit sooner, better, and cheaper. Happening had done it in the past but the line didn’t look like it was happening anymore.

      ‘Is it selling?’ Karen wondered aloud.

      ‘Let’s go ask a sales clerk.’

      ‘If we can find one.’

      Because Karen was becoming too well known she always hung back on this part of their forays. She got herself busy near the try-on room while Defina went in search of sales information. While Karen waited outside a fitting room a woman walked by with her four-year-old daughter. The woman picked up a cheap cotton knit top. ‘What do you think of this color, Maggie?’ the woman asked the little girl.

      ‘No!’ she said. Karen was surprised at the child’s vehemence.

      ‘I guess it’s not your color,’ Karen said to the little girl and smiled at the woman, who was dressed in a pair of Gap jeans and a nondescript turtleneck.

      The woman smiled back. ‘Oh, Maggie has always had really strong ideas about clothes,’ she said, and smiled down affectionately at her daughter. She took the child’s hand and the two of them walked away. Karen could see the crease of fat on Maggie’s arm at the elbow and the way her СКАЧАТЬ