I'll Drink to That: A Life in Style, with a Twist Read online

  I pulled a sumptuous cashmere turtleneck with an interesting block print by a brand that, having begun as a manufacturer of fabric in Italy’s Lake Como, still took pride in craftsmanship. Its extravagant materials are what fabrics were like when I entered this business. “Just feel it,” I said. “It has a European flair.”

  “I want to be very simple. I don’t want to be cluttered.”

  “Try it on so we don’t have to go through this next time,” I said, and laid the sweater on top of the sparkly shirt.

  My next find, a cherry red wool dress with puffed bracelet sleeves, went over a little better. It seemed that Mrs. P, like so many others, needed a firm hand.

  “That’s not bad,” she said.

  “The color is nice.”

  “This is an education.”

  “This is a dream.”

  We moved quickly through peplum skirts and swirling prints, sheaths and leather, to add a cropped tuxedo jacket, a round-necked jacket with a ruffle front, and a charcoal knit top to our collection. It was a small pull, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither should a wardrobe be.

  On our way to the elevator, we cut through the shoe department, a very confusing department with each pair of shoes more unattractive than the next. A platform bootie in red water snake under a spotlight looked like an artifact on display from an ancient culture that took perverse pleasure in deforming people’s feet. A leopard-print stiletto with a heel topping out at six inches, on a platform as well, would have made a drag queen blush. Whenever I walked behind women wearing these shoes, which was unfortunately quite often, I was struck by the strange, Frankenstein-like gait they produce. Legs in these shoes simply can’t support the height and weight.

  “Hello, ladies,” I said to a line of salesgirls buried in their phones. “You look like you’re waiting for the bus.”

  Even though they weren’t the type to respond, they were scared to death not to. My age has earned me that deference at least. After they squeaked out a few hellos, they quickly returned to their light world.

  Back on the third floor, I ran smack into a pair of palazzo pants, swingy and patterned with large tropical flowers made bolder by a black background. Where had those been hiding? It was sort of a wild idea. Not for Mrs. P (the tiny woman would have drowned in them), but for my tailored client coming later in the day. They were unlike anything she had ever looked at, but I just had a feeling about them. They reminded me of the luaus, the balmy romance, and the feminine dressing I’d seen on my Hawaiian honeymoon a hundred years ago. I draped them over my free arm.

  Back in my quiet corner of the store, I took a moment to tuck the palazzo pants into the lineup, placing them at the end—risks always come last. Then I went to the next-door dressing room to deal with Mrs. P.

  First I slipped the tuxedo jacket on her—jackets are the easiest place to start, not least of all because one doesn’t need to get undressed to try them on.

  “That’s pretty,” I said.

  “I don’t like the way it fits in the back of the neck,” she said, tugging at her collar like someone being pulled offstage. Sometimes it’s a wonder I don’t drink at work.

  “I guess you’re used to couture clothes,” I said, removing the jacket and placing it outside the dressing room.

  I approached her with the turtleneck, but she lost her nerve.

  “I can’t wear turtlenecks. I get way too hot.”

  I knew it was the mirror. She trained the same harsh judgment she used to quickly dispense with clothing on herself. Mrs. P was starting to panic—I had seen it a million times before—and in a complete reversal of her previously negative pose wanted to buy the red dress and the sparkly top still on their hangers, without trying either of them.

  “Oh, no, I don’t sell clothes like that,” I said.

  “They’ll be perfect.”

  “How do you know until you put them on your body?”

  I got the dress over her head. After thirty-eight years of doing this, nobody zips or buttons faster.

  “How does it feel here?” I asked, patting her on the hips, knowing full well how it felt.

  “Not good. It’s awful. My rear end is sticking out.”

  I took the dress off and put on the sparkly shirt, which was very becoming. The silver sequins complemented her bob.

  “It’s not exactly me,” Mrs. P said.

  “You don’t always want to look like you. . . . It’s beautiful with your hair.”

  “What about this?” she said, pointing to her neck, angry at the signs of its age. “I think the scoop neck is too much with this. My legs are the only part left that’s any good.”

  Mrs. P looked at herself again and then turned to my reflection to ask, “What do you think?”

  What do you think? I’m asked this question constantly. Even the new clients who arrive with very assured thoughts about their likes and dislikes wind up deferring to me in the end.

  Mrs. P, so tough and critical on the outside and so desperate on the inside, came to me because she said she was sick of holding on to the past. Confronting her long-gone youth through a closetful of couture clothes that were making her unhappy—and yet, inside my dressing room, she couldn’t let go. Of her youth, her couture clothes, her mother. I made up my mind that I wouldn’t sell her anything, not this time. We still had more work to do—at a later date.

  “What I think is the next time I’m the boss,” I said, putting an arm around her tiny frame. “Everything will be compiled and ready for you, whether you like it or not.”

  I escorted Mrs. P back to the elevator (I spend so much time in the elevator I should wear a red carnation in my lapel) and down to the basement for some makeup. It’s a must with me to make each woman I deal with, regardless of what shape or look she is, leave my clutches feeling different from when she entered, even if it is only through a new shade of lipstick.

  Having dispatched Mrs. P, I had no sooner returned to my office when my tailored client plopped her sizable purse on my love seat. After a quick catch-up about her husband (long-suffering), the dog (ditto), and the apartment (like the store, forever under renovation), we set to work.

  I slipped a double-breasted blue cashmere jacket on first to warm her up.

  “Quite gorgeoso,” she said.

  I put it to one side and followed it up with something more challenging: a white dress with polka dots and a black plant pattern that emanated from the bottom as if it were growing up from the hem.

  “It’s the year of the print,” I said. “You just have to close your eyes and pray.”

  Before she had a chance to zip the zipper all the way, I was pulling it down. With as many changes of clothes as I’ve seen, I know these things immediately.

  “No, take it off.”

  “I liked it on the hanger,” she protested.

  “It’s too broadening. All you need is a frame and you’ll look like a botanical picture.”

  A draped woven-crepe dress in black was just as bad.

  “Oh, God, please, you look like you’re in a shroud,” I said. “Off!”

  “Well, you’re certainly not out to sell anything,” she replied.

  I brought forth a pink suit whose deep, saturated color I could tell intrigued but also unsettled her.

  “Whose is it?” she asked.

  “It looks like an old Saint Laurent jacket,” I said, then told her the name on the label.

  “What size is this?” she asked while pulling up the skirt.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  She twirled in front of the mirror. “This looks like me but more festive, me but in a wilder color!” she said.

  You but happier, I thought.

  “It’s good for the luncheon regardless of weather. It could be cold, or we could have a heat wave,” I offered.

  “Could I wear black
pearls?” she asked.

  “Beautiful,” I replied.

  Success emboldened my client. She truly was starting to feel good and relaxed, which is not easy in this city or this life.

  “You know that flowered dress you sold me last year?” she said. “Everybody loves me in that dress. You can throw it in a shopping bag, and out it comes crisp and ready to wear. I get so many compliments whenever I put it on.”

  Hearing that always makes me feel good. Now, with the luncheon dress a reality, it was on to the vacation problems, but first I added a few structured shirts I thought were to her taste, including an oxford-cloth point-collar shirt with long sleeves.

  “I’m wavering,” she said, looking at herself in it.

  “Don’t. You have to like it instantly. Nothing gets better the more times you look in the mirror. I agree—it looks like your husband’s pajama top. Off!”

  The next was a paisley-and-geometric-pattern silk blouse.

  “This I love.”

  “You are now in a different ballpark. That’s très élégante.”

  The designer I had pulled the blouse from was very popular this season. Still, I didn’t like the entire collection. I never do; I glean individual pieces from many collections.

  “The paisley pattern is vintage,” I said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know because I’m old. I remember the original.”

  “What would you wear with it?”

  “Black pants.”

  “Tucked in or out?”

  “Both.”

  I placed the silk blouse beside the suit, which was separate from the blue cashmere jacket that I would most likely talk her out of in the end. The definite noes that I hung outside the fitting room had already been spirited away by Emily, my assistant.

  We disagreed over a blue-and-white cotton trapeze shirt.

  “You have to take this off,” I begged.

  “But I think it’s cute.”

  “No, no. Children will talk behind their hands about you.”

  “Does it come smaller?”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “It probably does,” I said, turning to Helen, the fitter who had just arrived with her pins and scissors in a clear plastic Birkin-style bag. “Please take up the cuff on the blouse while I look for this terrible blouse.”

  I zipped to the department where I had found the blouse in the first place, and wouldn’t you know my luck? In a store with very few sizes, of course they had it in a size smaller.

  “Here’s your favorite blouse,” I said when I returned.

  “I know I’ll wear it.”

  “Well, it’s cotton at least. This is the easy part for you. We haven’t gotten into the nitty-gritty part of the fitting.”

  That meant pants. After my client squirmed through a pair of ill-fitting capris and stretch pants that made her feel like her “granddaughter,” she started asking for her security blanket. “Any Chanel jackets floating around?” she asked demurely. It might have been an exorbitantly priced blanket, but a blanket it was nonetheless. A cloak behind which to disappear. She has so many of them she could have filled a warehouse.

  “You have enough Chanel jackets,” I said.

  “It’s been a couple of seasons. I’m going through withdrawal.”

  Is the customer always right? Not in this case, but still I went back down to the second floor and gagged as I pulled a Chanel bouclé jacket in red, white, and blue with silver buttons.

  “It fits me perfectly,” she said.

  “Do you really want to look like this?” She was not going to make such an insecure and costly purchase on my watch.

  “I guess not.”

  I rushed the jacket out of the fitting room before she could reverse herself again and used the moment of confrontation to push her boundaries all the way, revealing the palazzo pants. She paled and shook her head no.

  “Just for the fun of it, try them. It’s an experiment.”

  After years of our working together, she knew I wasn’t going to take no for answer. She slowly picked up the black silk pants as if they were slimy. But as she buttoned them and found the courage to raise her head to the mirror, I saw the light go on.

  “These are adorable! And comfortable!”

  She loved herself in them. It was as plain as day. But she wanted to know what to wear with them. While all they needed was a casual white shirt (Brooks Brothers makes the best non-iron in cotton—the collars stay crisp), I couldn’t send her home without a complete outfit. If I didn’t find the missing piece of the puzzle, she would never have the courage to put them on after they entered her closet. The door of my office is where I draw the line. I’m not part of the package—I don’t go home with the pants.

  I left her swishing around happily in her palazzo pants and went through the third floor yet again. Perhaps I had missed something. I passed a fashion victim in a short black minidress with pink polka dots and a ruffled skirt, carrying a big tote emblazoned with a designer logo. Too many people wear a label rather than what is becoming. I grabbed a slouchy sweater out of desperation.

  Back in the dressing room, the neck of the sweater was too high and made my client’s bosom look matronly, which turned her divine pants into clown pants. I got the sweater off before she had a chance to get a complex from looking in the mirror and was off again, but not before Emily stopped me: A young designer was on the phone.

  “I need vodka,” said the brilliant designer of true one-of-a-kind clothing, who was in the middle of a trunk show for the store. I recently put one of my clients into an exquisite three-quarter-length coat of his with crystals he affixed to the front but not the back. Why? Who knows? The inconsistency is what I love.

  I had to let him down—no vodka in my office, although I do understand how this business can drive you to drink.

  Into the elevator and up to five, I revisited a collection that I like because of its chic, clean lines and the fact that it’s made in America, which is extremely important to me (I try to sell it every chance I can). But the fit is not easy; all the clothes run very small. That would not do for the woman patiently waiting.

  I went up and down the escalators and in and out of the fitting room until I could not contemplate those palazzo pants for another minute (I, too, have my limits). I had to send my forlorn client home without the pants but told her not to worry: I, who do not know the meaning of the word “satisfaction,” never give up. I would hold on to them and, rest assured, find something that would suit her perfectly. Another day, another time, I would try again and see things differently. I find that once I have cleared my head, I’m game for a new beginning. I am like the doctor: You confide in him, he diagnoses you, and then, when your time is up, he’s on to the next case! Over the years I have learned how to turn away from the patient and move on. There is a cutoff period to my involvement, but with me at least one gets an hour or two.

  CHAPTER

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  * * *

  One

  In the 1930s, the South Side of Chicago was filled with good things: a dubonnet dress trimmed in white piqué; snowballs made from the inside of angel food cake hand-scooped out and rolled in homemade marshmallow and fresh coconut; the dining-room table set by Mother with china, silverware, starched linens, and an abundance of fruit and flowers; shopping at Kiddy Kicks, where an X-ray machine was used to fit shoes and make sure you were getting your money’s worth; the vegetable peddler’s heavily accented song floating up from his horse-drawn wagon to the third floor and through the window of my bedroom, where, awake but still, I dared not move until my nursemaid let me know it was time to rise.

  Morning was easy, particularly because I always laid my clothes out the night before. They were a cheery greeting. My Best & Co. blouse hanging from the wardrobe was ironed using a special small board for the puff sleeves alone, so t
hat they wouldn’t get creases. Its Peter Pan collar, which came on and off with fasteners for easy washing, was a snowy white. The topstitched knife pleats of a brown gingham skirt I chose as a well-suited companion had been pressed to razor sharpness. My patent-leather Mary Janes, the ones that required a buttonhook to fasten, had been treated with Vaseline, then buffed to a high shine with a cloth.

  And how good everything smelled! Our laundress, Isabelle, came every Friday to boil our clothes in a huge tin vat in the basement, where I intently watched her cook starch on a burner and stir the water with a wooden spoon. From the deep creases in her black skin, I figured her to be about a hundred years old. After she was done with the washing, all the laundry went into the backyard, adjacent to the alley, where it hung on the clothesline even in a light rain. Once the linens were washed, the sheets were put through a machine called a mangle, and the rest ironed by hand. Then she folded and tied them together with moire ribbons before they were returned to the linen closet. When I climbed into bed on a cool evening, my sheets gave off a heavenly aroma of starch, sun, and lavender sachets.

  My perfectly pressed and polished outfit helped with the “school stomachs” I suffered. A new teacher, a hard assignment, or any change in my daily activities threw me into delirium and often made breakfast intolerable. The dreaded cream of wheat, toast, and orange juice that awaited me had to be consumed on pain of a tap from the switch of my nurse, Nora. Very strict and very Irish, she believed that children cleaned their plates. To that end she plucked a twig off a tree in the park, removed the bark to reveal its supple green inside, and made it whistle if any food lingered.

  There wasn’t any reason to worry; I never had problems at school. The teachers liked me. In fact, I was often referred to as the teacher’s pet by the other children. But while I was a diligent student, I suspect that the label had more to do with how well dressed I was sent to school. My mother, Carol, had excellent taste. Whether it was a Lanz dirndl with a ruffled white blouse, a royal blue bodice, and a sweetly contrasting apron or a Tyrolean sweater with silver buttons, she made sure all my clothes were nice. My father, Harry Stoll—who worked for his uncle running a chain of fur departments before becoming president of the Chicago department store Mandel Brothers—had had a gray squirrel coat with big round buttons and a Peter Pan collar custom-made for me when I was five.