In Search of Style
Two women undertake a modern odyssey to find the golden fleece of fashion in Dallas and San Antonio. Where do they find it?
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The salesladies wear some of the combinations to show it can be done—high patent leather platform shoes, full skirts and satin shirts; little striped jackets with diamond buttons, tiny rehearsal shorts, take-offs of Busby Berkeley girls, Ship and Shore derivative blouses with grey pineapples and green palms, like you get by crossing Hong Kong with Hawaii. If you want to be a woman with a past come to the Gazebo. Emily remembered Ellen saying, "Some of those wild Gatsby clothes, why I don't like the way they look even on people they look good on. They remind me of late night movies."
Emily, who does not run with the trends, rummaged through the rack and found three dresses which all looked dumpy and plain, as though in 1950 a secretary had cleaned out her closet and decided to start again. She tried them on. One, a black and white polka dot wrap-around, fell inches below her knee and gave her a Dorothy Parker glow. And lo and behold, it looked good. A jade-green dress, simple skirt flowing away from the buttocks and a tight bodice, accented her body's good point—a small waist. It was the kind of dress you could enhance with jewelry and scarfs. The third made her look like a cocktail waitress who has just lost her last job. She bought two out of three, $70 worth of dresses in approximately four minutes. Is shopping a game of chance?
There was still a glowing gap in their search. They had avoided the big department stores, with the exception of Neiman's. So they cruised through the big familiar stores of Texas—Scarbrough's, Frost's, Sanger-Harris, Joske's—finding a wide range of style and price, but basic similarities of mileu. The big stores were like the perfection of a working democracy-a lot of representation of all tastes and needs: housedresses to steep in while watching soap operas, play dresses, prom dresses, uniforms, back-to-school stock, maternity, everything and anything. In comparison, the Marie Leavells', Lou Lattimore's and Colette Brezin's, were little aristocracies.
If you have initiative, adrenalin and time, you can use the department stores to superb advantage. If not, you risk getting lost in the maze of racks and floors. The girls tried not to get intimidated by the expansive atmosphere. In the big stores, it really was time (as Sally had said) and not money that was the most important factor in finding style. Hidden among the ready-to-wear could be some real treasures, particularly if you liked pulling separates together.
The girls felt like awkward novices as they made their way into Frost's of San Antonio. Frost's feels like a New York store the first tentative steps in—the glass counters, fixtures, display, the smell. On the elevators you can even coo, "Getting off please" like a real New York shopper.
In that big store, they fell into pitfalls and witnessed a few. The salesladies were attentive, though they often seemed tired from the quirks and whims of a roving clientele. One saleslady, hand up in the air, wailed, "I lost my customer. She was around here somewhere." They overheard a woman say to her saleslady (who was subbing as a clothes horse, carrying three or four outfits about), "But I just want something real sharp—dress, pants, skirts, anything." There was a tepid desperation to her voice. The girls sat on chairs and watched and empathized while the salesgirl and the customer went round and round a circular fixture of long skirts. It looked like the replay of the tigers-to-butter story in Little Sambo, only in real, real slow motion.
At the women's department on the second floor they found a table heaped with sale blouses. The scene was reminiscent of a kid's sloppy room. No hands were grabbing at the sale. Extra racks of dresses were lined up—sale days denoting summer even before it had really come. The racks gave it the appearance of a manufacturer's back room.
Two dejected, frustrated girls staggered out of the store. Rack-shocked to death, they were wondering if merchandise might possibly be bad for you. (Maybe they were allergic.) After the smaller, more select stores, they were half-way to being spoiled, unable at this point to use the resources of a great department store. Their imaginations felt chiseled down after seeing roughly the same outfits over and over again. They had been inundated by fashion, by all these clothes telling you what you are rather than who you are. There was a strong overpowering impetus to get back into their blue jeans and nap.
However, someone had told them of a store named Svelte Veldt, also in San Antonio. Intrigued by the name, and always in search of the promised land, they journeyed forth.
Most stores have a cardboard ambience, a backdrop that sits stiffly around the merchandise. In Svelte Veldt, the ambience is vital. The flow of the store is about and around you before you ever know it. There is a guiding theme at Svelte Veldt that gives a continuity to space and clothes. Veldt—the open plains of Africa. Svelte, the ripples that animals make, their silhouette grazing, running. And in this store where nothing is static, you do feel more like a gazelle than a shopper. You walk into a spacious room, subtly broken into small environments with each comer feeling different. The weathered walls are salvaged from an old barn. Tall plants that seem transplanted from the plains extend out to the customer. The dresses are penned in small stalls. Original animal paintings hang on the walls.
While the girls were smiling in the doorway, a saleslady came up to them with a jigsaw blouse and hunting vest, "It's lovely isn't it," she said as if she had just found it. This blouse is so nice to have on when you're cleaning doves."
The girls were soon greeted by Ann Clements, one of the owners and a woman vivid as Katherine Hepburn but tutored in fashion. She introduced them to the store by explaining that originally it had been stocked only with hunting clothes; it had been the creation of two women who saw a market for dressing women hunters. Bringing back the finest fabrics and designer pants from New York, they would redesign them into tailored and practical hunting outfits, adding style to function.
Ann has kept and played upon the original concept, but widened the vision to include more than lady hunters. The store went through a couture stage which has since been rejected. She explained that couture clothes wear the woman. The store has continued to evolve and at present it specializes in unique separates.
As Ann talked she began to move around. To the left of the store is a living room area with interrupted backgammon games on the desk; an open closet with hats for the hunt, hats for the sun and hunting suits. She calls this her conscience corner. It's for men. Ann proudly showed off an old antique china cabinet which held a display of jewelry and accessories, her specialty. Each shelf gets progressively more adventuresome until at the bottom are necklaces great enough to swap Manhattan Island for—big copper and wood creations.
Ann took the girls to a room off the main one, groomed for privacy with wicker chairs and table and a wall of long dresses. This is, she explained, a sanctuary for the woman who may not want to indulge in the hunt for separates and prefers a more private showing. When they did come upon the area of separates Ann said, "The heart of the store is here." Like a magician she quickly pulled out several separates and combined them in a way the girls would never have thought of. The store is stocked not just with what sells, but with what is right—Giorgini blouses, Blassport, Carol Horn, Norman Todd, Frank Olivier; names the girls had heard of, but prints they had never seen.
The area given over to dresses was very small indeed. Ann confirmed what the girls had been told at the luncheon: that dresses, with one or two exceptions, were not offering fashion. Of course, she had the one or two exceptions—Albert Nipon—unique flowered shirt-waist dresses.
In the back of the store is an area that looks like it houses posh army and navy surplus. This is where the hunting outfits are stored, as well as hunting aprons and luggage, the latter made for Svelte Veldt at the King Ranch. A mail order catalogue brings in orders from Alaska, Wyoming, Maine, Kansas and Long Island.
Beyond that, in a far room, a team of alterations ladies work, and next to them are several racks of sale clothes. Ann is a strong believer in getting rid of "the dogs." If something isn't right, she's the first to admit it and marks it down completely, so you have items reduced 75 percent.
The merchandising is a strategy aimed at helping the saleswomen, customers, and the store keep up high energy and enthusiasm. From day to day the merchandise is often displayed differently so a customer will be surprised by a new combination. Also, Ann doesn't allow her customers to have a one-dimensional view. Pointing to a dress, she said, "People don't buy at this angle. And that's why the racks are at a minimum and disguised. You can't buy from a hanger."
As the girls were listening, customers came in to have coffee and to chat with Ann and the saleswoman about the new fall market. As Ann explained, they try to look after their customers and share with them their ideas.
Even when she goes off to the clothing markets, Ann carries with her a clear sense of her clientele, remembering what people have bought so they can add-on to last season's clothes. Most people, not to mention our two girls, want a style that brings continuity to their life and extends it. Ann and her crew offer these women new possibilities and help them to enhance their own style without modishly overpowering them.
The girls had talked to Ann long enough; and now they wanted to slip into something wonderful. The fatigue that they had been wearing the last few days fell away as they went into a cabana-size dressing room. Needless to say when they came out their vision was extended about $200 worth.
When the shopping spree was over, the girls, though partially wrecked, both financially and emotionally, tried to salvage a few cold facts and ideals from the experience. They felt certain that having a style is at the core having a sense of self and a willingness to play with and project it. Style is a slow process that cannot be mimicked. Rebounding from Vogue, you cannot buy a smashing skirt and expect that to work. A little dab wouldn't do ya in fashion. It's an entire world view from hair to toe, a commitment. And it probably takes years.
You could not even meditate on style and have it come to you like an inner special light. No, to find style you had to risk body and soul, hustling in the market place. And once you had found the perfect clothes, the girls wondered how you ever recapture the glow and health you had before you had gone through the ordeal of shopping?
To the question: Can a young woman in the heart of Texas find a style and happiness in a wild shopping spree, the answer is yes. . . .(Provided you give yourselves some time, and then Texas can hold its own).
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