Fashion from the Inside
How Houston women in the know remain stylish, often at low cost.
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Mix and match beautiful clothes: Your combination will be different. Irene Pagen, who buys nothing but St. Laurent separates for daytime wear, says she keeps her annual clothes budget down to $1000-$1200 by filling in with just a few new things each year. St. Laurent, she says, designs his new clothes to go with the oldies so the green silk blouse she bought four years ago goes beautifully with last year's crepe pajama pants, this year's skirt, etc.
Buy "dresses" in the lingerie shop: I've seen $25 caftans at Esther Wolf's which weren't that different from the $400 Halston caftan I saw at Sakowitz. Also an opaque, slinky, solid color nightie can be disguised with good-looking jewelry (I know someone who wore such a getup to a ball), if you're willing to risk comments like "there goes Phoebe wearing her nightie again" or "do you want to go to bed now or later?" from the host.
Shop discerningly: from such non-prestige places as Sears and Penney's catalogues. This almost guarantees that you will not see yourself at the Heritage Ball or the Houston Country Club. To be on the safe side, it's best to combine such clothes with designer shoes and a Tiffany bracelet.
Raid the attic: almost anything pre-1930 is a find, and is back in style. Example: Lee and Nanette Taylor, daughters of the Harwood Taylors, were wearing their great grandmother's dresses at Mary Cooley's (daughter of the Denton Cooleys) wedding this past June.
Wanna Be Second Hand Rose? "What do you do with your old clothes?" we asked Houston women who spend a fortune staying perenially au courant. Here's what they told us:
"I give them to my maid."
Judging from the frequency of this response, a Houston maid has got it made next time she gets invited to a ball."I send them to my cousins in Dubuque (Peoria, Poughkeepsie or whereever) who are having a hard time."
"I trade them with my same size sister in Tulsa" or "my friend in New York. My Dior for your Galanos."
"I sell them on consignment to my church or hospital guild shop." Shops like The Guild Shop at 2009 Dunlavy (St. John the Divine Episcopal Church women), the Bluebird Circle Resale Shop at 613 West Alabama (Methodist Hospital benefits) and The Charity Guild at 1203 Lovett (Catholic) take clothes, bric-a-brac and furniture as outright donations (you get a tax deduction) or on consignment. They price; you get 50 or 60 per cent if it sells within 60 days. Says a volunteer worker in one of these shops: "We have women bring things in here—women who could buy and sell half of Houston—who can't wait till the first of the month to get that $7 from the dress we've sold for her for $14."
These shops can be dreary for the hip shopper, who also may lose face by being seen browsing here, but occasionally they feature real treasures like the antique hand-made, tucked and lace insetted wedding dress one lucky soul picked up at the Guild Shop last month for $30.
"I sell them on consignment to second hand dress shops" like Encore (2308 Morse), Baubles and Beads (1955 W. Gray and 9715 Katy Freeway) or Between Us (3614 South Shepherd). Owner gets 50 per cent, if sold.
Lynn Sakowitz Wyatt, for example, who buys many of her clothes at New York and Paris couture houses, gives her last year's to Between Us whose profits go to ORT, an international vocational training program. Lynn once explained the transaction: She may buy a dress for $350, give it the next year to ORT where it's sold for $20, giving $10 in cash and a $10 tax deduction. Big deal!
"I give them to the annual benefit (she never calls it 'rummage') sale—and get a tax deduction." Best known are the annual mob scenes run by the Seven Eastern Women's Colleges (Seven C's) in the spring and the River Oaks Garden Club in the fall.
This year's ROGC Pink Elephant Sale is October 16-17 in St. Philip Presbyterian Church in 4807 San Felipe. Everything at his sale is donated except furs (which are often spectacular buys), which may be sold on consignment. Very few clothes go for over $5 or $10 (and some are 5¢) except for some exquisite designer clothes kept protectively out of the crush (you ask for them). They get some amazing donations. Last year a chauffeur drove up with 15 boxes of Neiman-Marcus shoes which had never touched ground. One size 6 customer comes in every year and asks for Mrs. So and So's clothes—they're beautiful and fit her perfectly, she's discovered.
"We have lots of customers who have been coming here for years," says one worker. "And our own members buy as well as donate." For example, she recalled that last year one member's husband, a man of moderate means, bought a $250 custom-made tux donated by a wealthy member's husband. The buyer had his own tailor alter the tux to fit.
Of course, there are a few disappointments—like the bride who bought her new husband a nice pair of used Levi's, took them home and found his name in them already. Her mother-in-law, it seems, had been cleaning out his closet.
Menena Martinez Portrait of the Perfect Salesperson
I've seen Menena Martinez's clientele list and it's staggering. I won't embarrass her by naming names, but take my word for it that dozens of Houston's most fashionable women are there. Just how did this tiny Argentine manage to build up such an impressive list of customers in the year she's been here?
Attractive, fortyish, Menena Martinez, who has loved designing and selling clothes since she ran her own boutique in Buenos Aires, is frank to say that fashion is a world in which she hopes to "go to the top." She came to Houston to Sakowitz after two years in New York at Bergdorf Goodman and at Valentino's Madison Avenue store, where she helped put Jackie O and her friends together, at least so far as clothes go.
Menena's customers consider her their friend. They often lunch together. In fact, Menena, who came to Houston on her own last year, says she's made all her friends here through work. There's never any pressure to buy when you're with Menena, her admirers tell me. This is the same message I get from most other successful persons. Menena, unlike most of them, however, does not work on commission. "I know I make money for my store," she says, "and that makes me happy."
Here's what Menena Martinez has been up to lately:
She sent a thank you note to a woman, Mrs. S. B., who bought a Jean Muir evening dress from her. That was her first sale to Mrs. S. B..
She sent three designer dresses to Mrs. S. F. in Aspen. None were returned.
She sent a complete St. Laurent outfit—blouse, sweater, skirt, pants, and beads—to Mrs. J. B. in Colorado Springs. "I knew she loves pink," says Menena, "so that's what I selected for her and then I wrote her a letter and told her which accessories to wear."
She called up a Houston customer and arranged for her to get the first look at Halston's fur collection six weeks before the official showing.
She called another Houston woman to tell her that several of the clothes she had admired on her last visit to the Givenchy Boutique, but declined to buy because of price, were now on sale and did she want to come in to see them.
She told Mrs. C. B. not to throw away the black velvet blazer she had bought last season (at Neiman's, by the way), but took her around the store and helped her select new pants and blouses to go with the blazer.
She sent two dresses out to Mrs. R. H. in River Oaks, whom she has only seen two times, but now sends clothes to regularly. Same deal to Mrs. W. D. of Fort Worth whom she has only met once.
She helped a customer whose budget is very limited, but who she knows can sew, to get this year's look by finding her a lovely blouse and then sending her down to the yard goods department to buy Ultra-Suede and a good pants suit pattern.
Menena is on her way.
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