nose, and the same wide mouth. Karen bit her lip and felt her hand bite into Defina’s upper arm. ‘Look at her,’ she hissed to Defina, but by the time Defina turned her head, the woman had moved past them. Karen turned, craning her neck, but all she could see was the blue sweater and gray hair of the woman. ‘She looked like my mother,’ Karen cried.
‘You crazy? Your mother’s half the size of that old thing. And she wouldn’t be caught dead in a rag-bag outfit like that one,’ Defina said.
Karen realized that she wasn’t making any sense – at least not to Defina. Am I losing it? she wondered. I spend the morning drawing maternity clothes and then I imagine seeing my real mother on the escalator at Macy’s. Get a grip, Karen!
‘You all right?’ Defina asked.
‘Sure. Peachy keen.’
At the second floor Karen took a quick detour through a row of dozens of nightgowns. All of them had been mucked up with cheap lace or embroidery or acetate satin ribbon. Karen sighed. In a week, after one washing, once the sizing was gone, these would look like rags. Karen knew that at the bottom end of the market, low-quality garments were splashed with cheap ornaments. Ruffles, polyester lace, fake silk flowers distracted from the skimpy fabric and lousy design. But why wasn’t there even one simply constructed Egyptian cotton nightie? Okay, it didn’t have to be Egyptian cotton. Sea Island would be good. Or even just plain cambric would do, and be so superior to this polyester-blend junk. Karen knew from her old fashion history days at Pratt that cambric had originally been made of linen in a French city called Cambrai. She sighed, looking at the shoddy nightgowns. Why did Americans get fooled? A French woman wouldn’t be caught dead in this crap. Karen shook her head.
‘Oh Lord, spare me another one of Karen’s why-can’t-they-just-keep-it-simple-so-that-the-poor-folks-can-get-some-quality speech.’ Dee hadn’t understood Karen about the mother business, but she did know what Karen was thinking about ninety percent of the time.
Karen took one more look at the cheap nightgowns. The bows and ruffles that would look awful after one washing added what the industry called ‘hanger appeal.’ Did poor people really think they got more with ugly design? Even paper towels were ruined with patterns of unicorns or pilgrim fathers. Karen believed, deep in her heart, the way other people believed in flossing or the Bible, that form should follow function. But if it was her religion, she was clearly alone in practicing it. ‘Let’s go to designer stuff and then up to budget sportswear,’ she said to Defina, who shrugged agreement.
‘You’re the boss. But why you wanta see fat women trying on rayon pants is beyond me.’
‘Bitterness is unattractive in the young,’ Karen reminded her.
‘Who’s young?’ Defina asked.
They checked out the
‘Let’s check out Norris Cleveland,’ Karen said.
There wasn’t much there, except for a line-for-line copy of a box-pleat skirt that Karen had done three seasons ago. Except Karen’s didn’t pull across the belly the way this one would because Karen hadn’t bias cut the fabric. ‘You’d have to be a size four with a tummy tuck to look good in that.’ Defina shook her head and snickered. Then she lifted the price tag and raised her eyebrows. ‘She’s asking eight hundred bucks for this!’
Karen shook her head. ‘Something is wrong when shopping becomes an experience that requires the help of a personal trainer for stamina, a psychotherapist for self-esteem, and a financial adviser who figures out if you can afford to make that eight-hundred-dollar investment in a skirt.’
As always, once they got up to the moderate-priced sportswear, Defina started paying attention. First they went through the racks to look at the merchandise. Nothing with nothing, as Belle would say. Not much design talent here. People who didn’t know the industry thought of designers as dictators, but Karen knew she was more like an incumbent office holder who needed to keep in touch with public opinion. She liked to see what trends moved down from haute couture to the masses, and which sold. They looked at merchandise for a while. Liz Claiborne might have more selling space than anyone, but it was a lackluster showing. 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,